1. The Value of Accounting in Real Estate: Ira Fishman's journey from accounting to real estate reveals the pivotal role that his accounting expertise played in successfully cultivating housing units. He shares how the principles and skills learned in accounting have proven invaluable in managing the economics of properties, overseeing operational efficiencies, and driving his real estate ventures.

2. Advantages of Investing in HUD Properties: Ira Fishman discusses the benefits of investing in HUD properties, highlighting the impact of resident income on HUD payments and potential delays. He shares insights on navigating these affordable housing investments, highlighting the potential for significant returns, lower tenant turnover, and better care of the units.

3. Embracing Action Over Fear: The episode underscores the importance of taking action in the real estate journey. Ira emphasizes that fear should not be a barrier to start, and small beginnings can lead to significant achievements. The podcast encourages listeners to make informed decisions, start small, and leverage the insights shared to navigate the dynamics of supply and demand in affordable property investing.

0:00:01 - Vikas Gupta

This is the Hacking Real Estate Podcast, episode 24.

0:00:05 - Ira Fishman

You know, I know it might be a little cliche, but you just got to get started. You could do reading, you could do podcasts, you could look at lots of things. But you know, sometimes you just got to. You got to take the best information you have available. You make the best decision you think works. You know limit your downside and sometimes you just got to jump in. You know, just be smart about it, be aware of that downside. I should say Just buy to buy, but you know, do your homework and if the numbers really work and it makes sense, don't procrastinate and think, well, I'll do it next, I'll do the next one. Just start somewhere. Start, you know, start small and good things will happen.

0:00:40 - Brandon Hall

Welcome to the Hacking Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the stories of seasoned, hands-on and tech savvy real estate investors. We'll learn the strategies and tools they use to maximize returns and minimize hassle, all while navigating the rapidly changing real estate market. I'm your co-host, Brandon Hall, and managing partner of Hall CPA, and I'm sitting alongside my co-host, Vikas Gupta, ceo of Azibo. With our combined 15 years of experience in real estate investing and entrepreneurship, we're here to help you up your real estate game. Let's get hacking.

0:01:12 - Vikas Gupta

Welcome everyone to today's episode of the Hacking Real Estate Podcast. On today's episode, our guest is Ira Fishman. Ira is a champion of accessible housing. Driven by personal ties and a deep sense of purpose, he's cultivated nearly 400 housing units for those in need over a span of 12 years. As a certified occupancy specialist, he combines his expertise with a genuine desire to create meaningful homes. Ira, welcome to the show. Thank you. Appreciate you having me In your own words, can you tell us your real estate journey?

0:01:46 - Ira Fishman

It goes back about 12 or 13 years. That's when I first got into the multifamily space. I partnered with BuddyMind from college, who's been doing it for 30 plus years. I had some previous. I have other business ventures that I, prior to getting to real estate, which I'm still involved with. My business partner oversees our financial service businesses, but I spend my full time in real estate.

My real estate started in actually affordable housing partnered up with, as I mentioned earlier, buddymind. By the way, the deals I'm involved with are primarily joint venture deals. They're all joint venture deals, primarily Illinois, a little bit of Wisconsin. Just exited South Carolina on an opportunity that we sold fourth quarter of 2022. Right now, I'm presently in the Midwest.

The properties that I'm involved with are both traditional apartment buildings as well as affordable properties, which are typically HUD properties with HAP contracts. Hap contracts a little bit different than a section eight. Well, it's a section eight property. The two big differences in section eight properties are HAP contracts, which are housing assistance program as well as vouchers. The majority of the units that I own are affordable Do have HAP contracts. I do have a few properties with section eight vouchers. My journey started there, as I mentioned several years ago. The deals I'm involved with are typically usually one, two or three of us in an investment. That's primarily what I've been doing for the last several years. Investment management is one of my main focuses. My background is accounting many years ago, so I'm pretty comfortable in the finances, overseeing the economics of properties. I do like the process and procedure, which is not necessarily related to accounting, but that's something that resonates with me. I've been doing that for quite some time.

0:03:58 - Brandon Hall

Tell me a little bit more about the accounting. I run a CPA firm focused on real estate investors, so very into the accounting and tax aspects. Talk to me about that background.

0:04:07 - Ira Fishman

That's so exciting but got my degree in accounting many years ago. I worked for a public accounting firm smaller one in the Chicago area for a couple years. I ended up leaving there because I wasn't overly stimulated by accounting. I do think it's a phenomenal business background. You really learn a lot and it's been invaluable to me in various ways. But then spent a whole lot of time. I ended up leaving there working for one of my clients in the investment research field. I did that for a few years and after that I started some other businesses. That's nothing so exciting on that side.

0:04:52 - Brandon Hall

So you started in accounting and then you started some other businesses worked in. It sounds like you had a pretty diverse background. What led you to real estate, like why go and start a real estate business?

0:05:03 - Ira Fishman

I've always been intrigued by it. Maybe 20 something years ago I played around with it a little bit. I bought a couple of properties in some tougher areas in the city of Chicago which I thought we're going to be. I didn't realize the challenges that were involved. It sounded these were also affordable housing. They were sectioned properties with vouchers and just sounded like it made so much sense. You get paid on the first or second of the month and that covers everything. You repair it, you fix it, and it wasn't quite as easy as that. So I exited that right before 2008, which, just by circumstance, was not related to that. It just wasn't working for me. I partnered up with somebody at the time who was a contractor. He wanted to keep the businesses I really wanted out, so he ended up buying me out and the timing worked okay for me. I made a couple of bucks or broke even. It was nothing super special but unfortunately wasn't great timing on his end. So that was where I started in this.

0:06:07 - Vikas Gupta

Why affordable housing? You hear so much about different municipalities or states having to think about how do we remove discrimination against people with section eight vouchers, so clearly there's a large segment of investors who are trying to stay away from it. And it sounds like you went into it first not necessarily the greatest experience, but you decided to go back into it and you went back into affordable. So tell us about that. I'm just fascinated by that piece of it.

0:06:36 - Ira Fishman

The businesses I'm in prior to real estate are in the financial service businesses in areas that there's a lot of unbanking going on. So I've spent a fair amount of time in tougher areas, a little more economically challenged areas, so a decent comfort zone in those areas. A couple of my partners one is a friend of mine from college and another partner, actually two other partners they were venturing into a HUD property in Illinois, kind of in the western part of the state, and they knew my background, they knew I was interested. I was interested, I wanted to get back into real estate my buddy and I have talked about for many years. An opportunity presented itself. I was going to be the one who was going to oversee the property, do the asset management et cetera, and I was comfortable with it. We bought a property that was 76 units Like there were 19 or 20 were empty. It was just being run super poorly. So I didn't know a whole lot about running properties but just using some common sense and some strategies I've used for my other businesses was running. It was fall within like four months. It was just a matter of getting the right people, all the right contractors, the right situation and we filled up very quickly. We got the occupancy where it should be. It was being run. The operational efficiencies were not very efficient so we cleaned up some of that. It's working out well.

It's a family property. There's properties that are family. There's some that are for seniors and others for disabilities. Those are the main couple. I'm personally involved with both family and the disability properties. Those are the ones that I've resonated with. Not opposed to senior, my partners actually have some seniors before I got involved with them, so I certainly would welcome that. So that was my first property that I did get involved with HUD properties. Life circumstances also kind of moved me that direction.

My oldest son was born with some special needs. He's got some cognitive challenges and I have a soft spot. My kids are my world and there's people out there, there's situations out there where people just need some extra help. Those are areas that I focus in. That's part of my why.

As my son got older, my wife and I created a property for young adults with special needs and it's a couple of miles from our house in Illinois suburbs of Illinois, right outside of Chicago, I should say it's for young adults with special needs. I've talked to lots of families my wife, more so than I, have traveled around the country looking how to put this program together, and we started this about seven years ago. At this point we got nine young adults living in our building. We hired a company that works with our kids I mean, not all of our kids at this point, but there's still our kids and they handle these job, coaching, social transportation, just kind of the whole BOLO WACS and it's working out very well.

So that was my intro, sort of, to working with the disability world, with Section 8. And just in December of 22, I just bought another Section 8 property, also for adults with special needs. It makes me feel good and I try to make it a win-win, both on my side, certainly, and, more importantly, on their side. So it made the improvements that need to be needed. We try to make it a home for our residents. It's not just an apartment, a place to live, but it's a home and it's a way of life and our goal is to improve their lives.

0:10:21 - Vikas Gupta

That's fantastic. It's very inspirational and obviously it's A very personal reason for wanting to do this.

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0:11:09 - Vikas Gupta

I'd love to understand a little bit more about the economics of the business. So if I'm an investor, this is resonating with me but sounds kind of complicated. You have another organization coming in providing services. Give us a little bit more. Is it a for-profit, non-profit partnership? How is that all structured and how are you getting the additional services in there and who's paying for it?

0:11:33 - Ira Fishman

So the one I mentioned for my sons at that, this one is not a HUD property. There are some people who do get some subsidies from the states, but that is not a HUD property. To be honest with you, we have three HUD properties presently. Two of them are family and the third one is for disabilities, with people with disabilities, others who are seniors as well. So it's kind of a combination of, but it's not based on age, on that one at all. As far as services and investors, the three properties I'm involved with, as I mentioned before, they're joint ventures, so it's myself and on one of them it's one partner, on the other ones Four of us, there's three of us and then one of them, there's two of us. So a little bit of overlap with the partnerships, but not exactly. It does take a little bit more to get involved or to get approved by HUD and they go through extensive backgrounds on anybody with ownership and management. I took courses early on in my real estate career to learn more about it, which qualifies me to manage the properties, and it helps with the ownership part as well. You could own the properties as long as you've got a management company who is certified to run these type of properties. So two of the three we manage in-house. The third one is sort of a little bit out of the way. I do have a third party management company on that one, but I do asset manage all three of the ones that I'm involved with.

Nothing's easy, no matter what you do. I mean there's still a lot of regulation. There's a lot of bureaucracy that involved. We do annual HUD inspections, which in my opinion is a good thing. It keeps bad operators out. Keep them out of getting involved with this, because if you don't get certain scores they could basically kick you out of the system. They could force you to sell a property if you're not keeping it up to standard. I think it's a good thing. We spend a lot of time and energy. We run our properties nice and clean and there's good and bad operators in anything you do. But we do well on our scores, we keep up with it. We treat our residents with respect. I think people are happy with the properties that we oversee.

0:13:40 - Brandon Hall

So someone was looking to get into the low-income housing space. What are some things that you know now, that you wish you knew when you started. It's challenging.

0:13:51 - Ira Fishman

It's a process to get in. It's almost like a catch-22. It's like, in order to fill out all the paperwork and do what you do, you need experience and you don't get experience unless you do it. I mean, fortunately, in my situation my partners had experience. So I guess on the first deal I was part of the group. On the second deal, I had the experience to go into that one and I was just like them. And then the third one I did on my own with another partner who did not have any HUD experience and that wasn't a problem because I had that at that point. So probably just doing your research, getting potentially choosing partners, or certainly doing the research of what it takes to qualify. So I mean, if you did qualify for it, then you could get that first deal, but I would do my homework and get the certifications that are necessary to do that for sure. But once it's up and running it runs like a regular property, to be honest with you, with a couple extra layers that need to be done.

0:14:50 - Vikas Gupta

Those certifications? Is that the certified occupancy specialist?

0:14:55 - Ira Fishman

Yeah, that's one of them. We have somebody at our office who has, you know who's taken four, five, six, ten classes on things involved with HUD and you kind of move along the chain of what you can do. Mine is, what I've done is more the entry level, manager level type of thing, but it certainly gets more sophisticated when you take higher level classes. But yes, the COS is one of the ones that I have personally.

0:15:26 - Vikas Gupta

On the social and emotional benefits. What are some of the other benefits of investing in HUD properties versus just straight market rent properties?

0:15:38 - Ira Fishman

I guess the advantages I would say are you get paid by HUD. Usually on the second or third of the month you get an ACH that comes into your account. So that could account for it's kind of a sliding scale of how much the residents make versus what HUD pays, for they have to qualify both financially and have a background check. So if somebody's you got to pass both of those basically If you make too much money when you first move in, they won't allow. When you want to move in, they won't allow it. You could make under the threshold when you first move in and so you get a job and it's above that. You could still live there but you would be paying the full boat. But so once you're in you could do that and HUD would participate zero. And we have other people who make under a certain threshold and we call them zero renters, where HUD pays 100%. So it's sort of a sliding scale of how much is being paid. I'd say 70% is probably a decent amount of what HUD pays and the residents paid the other 30%. So I mean that's an advantage.

During COVID as long as the government wasn't going out of business anytime soon, we were getting paid. There were a couple times where some issues where we got paid a couple months late because there were some legislation reason that things were pushed back. I guess a bit, but at the end of the day it got all made up and we did receive our money. So receiving your money is a positive. If somebody doesn't pay properly and we would have to evict them, they could get kicked out of the HUD system for several years. So it's advantageous for them not to get evicted basically. So that does keep evictions down Quite a bit. It just helps people who need a little assistance because there's challenging times out there, and certainly people for financial reasons. Other people have challenges for cognitive or physical reasons and they need that extra help. It's a nice thing and the right thing to do sometimes.

0:17:41 - Brandon Hall

You just mentioned that there was one instance where it took a few months to get paid. Was that on all the units that were under this program, or is it just like a select few?

0:17:50 - Ira Fishman

No, it's the whole program, it was the whole country, basically.

0:17:54 - Brandon Hall

Oh, got it. So when that type of stuff comes up, what did you do? Did you have to start trying to figure out how to what your different capital sources were to float the property, or did you have enough experience at that point where it was fine? Because I can imagine a new operator coming in and that hits, and then they're going a few months without any sort of cash flow?

0:18:13 - Ira Fishman

It didn't go past two months. It didn't go like past two months. At the time you didn't know exactly what was going to happen. There was a delay. We tried to keep a decent balance, that reserve balance for various things. So we were able not necessarily a replacement reserve, because we do need that as well, but we tried to keep a cushion in our operating account. So we were okay on that In that instance. If somebody didn't plan that in advance, that could have been problematic. Maybe HUD? I'm not quite sure. Maybe HUD could have worked things out with certain operators, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

0:18:51 - Vikas Gupta

You mentioned earlier, when you were telling us your story, that prior to this most recent round of real estate, you'd spent some time in sort of unbanked or underbanked financial services. What did you learn there that's helped you? You said that you had some lessons or you had some experience. What did you learn there that's helped you in your real estate ventures?

0:19:09 - Ira Fishman

It's just respect. Just because someone makes X amount of dollars a year or someone's in a resident as a class 8 property and one's in a class C property or D property, there's good and bad people in every walk of life, no matter where you're at. Just because someone has more money doesn't make them a better person. It doesn't mean they're not going to treat the apartments crappy. You mentioned this earlier, but I think there's a.

I think people in affordable properties get a bad rap that they get lumped together that oh, I wouldn't do that because they're undesirable. But that's not true. I mean I've got properties. I don't necessarily have any. Well, I do have one that's an A property, but mostly Bs and Cs. There's great people in some of the affordable properties. There's great people in the Bs and the Cs. It kind of goes across the board. You certainly have to do your diligence on whatever property you're looking at and there's good and bad. I kind of learned that early on. You treat people respectfully and for the most part they reciprocate. I did learn that in my other business, pre-real estate, and I think that's very applicable to real estate for sure.

0:20:30 - Vikas Gupta

If they're unbanked, presumably they are correct from wrong, but presumably they have also a thin credit file. How are you screening tenants? The unbaking was more.

0:20:42 - Ira Fishman

Well, that was for my prior business but the current tenants right now. Pretty standard way of doing our screening certain credit score they need and certainly we look if there's any history of criminal activity, anything like that or evictions and stuff like that. It's pretty standard for what we do for across the board.

0:21:04 - Vikas Gupta

Is there a big supply demand gap for some of these types of housing? I'm thinking specifically in the special needs housing.

0:21:14 - Ira Fishman

There's a huge need for it. I'll tell you that much Supply there isn't quite as high as the demand. Some of the half properties I was talking about what's out there is out there is grandfathered in. They don't make anymore HAP properties. I mean HAP contract properties. You could buy a building and you could make it a Section 8 vouchers and as long as you follow the rules that Section 8 has for you, there is a minimal standard I should say that you must have in order to meet their requirements. So you could open up a building anywhere you want and do that. You could do that in the nicest, most expensive areas in the country and do that. But as far as the ones that are part of the HAP program, they don't make those anymore.

Whatever is out there is out there. So you're supplying demand. Yeah, there's definitely a lot more people are looking for affordable properties than residents looking to move into them than there are existing out there. So there are high demand. I would probably say probably a little. Before I got into it, or maybe when I first got into it 12, 13 years ago, it wasn't as desirable to buy these type of properties, and now they're hard to define. There's a lot more people looking for them.

0:22:36 - Vikas Gupta

So if there's more demand than supply, does that translate into lower tenant turnover or, you already mentioned, fewer evictions? I mean, are there? I'm just thinking about it like if I put my straight financial hat on and think about it from like a first principles, all right. If there's a mismatch between supply and demand, does that translate into better financial returns through some mechanism?

0:23:02 - Ira Fishman

It definitely means waiting lists. So we've got significant waiting lists at almost all our properties. You could say if you've got a smaller property, if you have a property where there's mostly twos and less ones and threes, for instance, you could say people aren't rushing to get out of there. If somebody calls and says I'm looking for a, we could say there's a seven year wait to get in here because there might be 17 people on the list or 20 people on the list and the three people who've been there have been there for four years, eight years and 12 years and not moving out so quickly. It's a random number. I mean they could live there for the next 20 years and no one's going to open it up. So it just depends on the areas or certain areas. Some areas are more desirable than others. But if you run a nice program, people kind of that's where they want to go and that's where they want to stay and, yes, turnover is typically less I would say they treat the property well because the majority of the people really appreciate it.

The economics we are restricted on what we could charge, so it's not like you can't. It is based on what market rate is, but there's a formula, how it's calculated and we can't just take a rent $800 rent and say, wow, they're getting market rents down the street for 1,100. We can't just go to 1,100. We're restricted on what we could charge. So there are rules. It's not. There's pros and cons to owning these type of affordable properties and the family properties, I'll be honest with you, have more wear and tear than I probably let a senior property is going to have and I mean that's. I think that would be. That's just a generalization that would apply regardless if it's affordable property or not.

0:24:53 - Vikas Gupta

Yeah, so that's it to me on the pros side lower tenant turnover, better care of the unit. On the other side, you're a little bit more constrained than what you can do on the rents, but you have a higher guarantee of income given that the government is paying a share of the rent, and so it's sort of like it's an interesting equation, I guess, to look at. But a lot of pluses, certainly in terms of like turnover can kill returns if you're turning over your unit every year in some places.

0:25:29 - Ira Fishman

Yeah, no, I agree. But I'd have to say you know there's kind of that. That's not a cliche, but you know people say you need one maintenance person per hundred and you know one in the office. I would have to say we typically we have to run our properties heavier. You know, if I've got a 76 unit property, we almost have two, almost two full maintenance guys on that and in-house person. So you know there's some extra salary there. It's a little more expensive to run in that sense From the person outside. I don't know that's how it equates. So that's something to keep in mind.

0:26:10 - Vikas Gupta

Are there tax benefits to investing in these kinds of properties?

0:26:13 - Ira Fishman

I presently have not invested in tax credit deals, but there is a process out there called low income housing tax credits, which you could also be could work on a HAP property a typical HAP property, and it doesn't have to be either. But so there are some really good tax benefits If one wants to play in that lane. I should say I personally have not owned a tax credit property. I've taken a couple of classes on it, so I you know, I know enough to be dangerous, I know how it works. If it made sense I would do it, but at the present moment I haven't. But that is something to keep in mind as well.

0:26:58 - Brandon Hall

And is this going to be an asset class that you continue to invest into, because it kind of sounds like you sort of have a moat, considering it's hard to get in and the supply is essentially there's no more supply coming on the market. So is this something that you just kind of hunker down and kind of do the hedgehog concept or are you looking at different asset classes over the next few years?

0:27:19 - Ira Fishman

No, I definitely. If something came up, I'm always looking for opportunities to buy more of these properties. I really do like this. I think we have pretty solid niche there. We know how to run them through experience, through some trial and error of that formula that works. So, no, I'm absolutely looking for more properties and if I could find strategic partners in areas I'm not in, I absolutely would be interested. I mentioned earlier I saw the property in South Carolina. That also was an affordable property that I did sell. Typically I'm a buying a whole guy, but that one just made sense at the time. My partner and I decided to sell it. But no, I'm always looking for more affordable properties as well as traditional apartment buildings. So I like both. It just depends what the opportunity looks like and kind of take what the market gives sometimes. I mean, if it's a big property, I'd be interested, and the last one I bought in December was a smaller 13 unit property, but it was near an area where I had a couple other properties, so it just kind of worked out.

0:28:31 - Vikas Gupta

And if someone does have something they think you might be interested in, how can they get in touch with you?

0:28:36 - Ira Fishman

I am on LinkedIn under Ira Fishman or they can email me ira at northloopinvestmentscom, and I'd be happy to talk further If anybody's got questions. I'm happy to. You know affordable properties as well. As you know, it's not easy to be a parent out there with kids with special needs, so I'd be happy to talk to people who might be interested in residential and I'm happy to tell you a little bit more about the journey my wife and I had and what we have done. And yeah, my wife and I talked to lots of parents about that, or guardians and you know about what our journey looks like and happy to help out if I can.

0:29:22 - Vikas Gupta

Well, thanks, ira. If you're ready, we'd like to go into our three standard closing questions. Sure, ready, great Question number one what is your favorite book, and it doesn't have to be real estate related.

0:29:34 - Ira Fishman

My favorite book I probably would say who, Not how by Dan Sullivan. It's just a really good book on process and procedures and kind of delegating who should be doing it, not how it gets. You know one of my issues I'm always wearing like too many hats, trying to do too many things, and I think I'd be way more efficient and better at it if I delegate. And I've been working on that quite a bit in the last year or so and there's a lot to it. I think it's a great book.

0:30:06 - Vikas Gupta

I think that's the second time that book has come up in this question. Right, Brandon?

0:30:10 - Brandon Hall

Yeah, and it's a really good book. And, just like you said, the delegation piece, instead of asking how do I get this done, Start asking who should I be tapping to get this done? It's a really simple shift in your frame of mind, but it's a good book. I mean he goes into like different strategies and what and how to actually deploy. Anyway, check it out. It's a good book. I like it too.

0:30:32 - Vikas Gupta

All right. Question number two when investing in real estate, what is more important to you, Cash flow or appreciation? Good question.

0:30:40 - Ira Fishman

You can never go wrong with cash flow. I think I do like cash flow. I personally have kind of a blend, you know, almost in my portfolio. I think there's a good blend makes sense. So I think you know I like the day-to-day cash flow. It helps pay the bills. It helps you know it helps buy more assets. I'm more of a buy and hold guy. So I guess if I had to pick one of the two, I'd probably say cash flow.

0:31:11 - Vikas Gupta

Great Well, I appreciate the definitive pick. We get a lot of both on this podcast and our last question is are there any final pieces of advice you'd like to leave our audience with that? We didn't get a chance to cover on the show.

0:31:26 - Ira Fishman

You know, I know it might be a little cliche, but you just got to get started. You could do reading, you could do podcasts, you could look at lots of things, but you know, sometimes you just got to take the best information you have available. You make the best decision you think works. You know, limit your downside and sometimes you just got to jump in. You know, just be smart about it, be aware of that downside. I should say Don't just buy to buy, but you know, do your homework and if the numbers really work and it makes sense, don't procrastinate and think, well, I'll do it next, I'll do the next one. Just start somewhere. Start, you know, start small and good things will happen.

0:32:00 - Vikas Gupta

I think it's a great place to end. Thank you so much, Ira.

0:32:04 - Ira Fishman

Thanks, guys, I really enjoyed it. Nice to meet you guys both.

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