Phoenix Metro Multifamily

We buy apartment buildings other people have given up on — and we run them ourselves.

One condo in 2014. Today: a 90-unit, $30M+ portfolio we built ourselves, a management company running 173 doors with our own people, and institutional-grade acquisitions sponsored through LGL Capital. Same dollars, recycled through cash-out refinance, 1031 exchange and self-directed IRA structure — over and over.

See what we've built Read the field notes

Why we did this

The retirement system we were sold doesn’t build anything you can hand down.

We were not starting from nothing. Two strong incomes, maxed contributions, the whole prescribed path — and the honest math on that path is that it produces a single number you then spend down on a schedule until it runs out or you do. It pays you nothing while you’re still working for it. It leaves your kids a balance, not a business.

We wanted the other instrument: assets that pay us now, fund the life we actually want to live, and still exist when we’re finished. Nobody sells that in a brochure, so we went and bought it one building at a time, starting with a single condo in 2014.

We don’t think of these as apartment buildings. We think of them as small businesses that stopped being run.

That’s the real opportunity, and it’s demographic. An enormous share of the small multifamily in this valley is owned by people who bought it decades ago, ran it well for a long time, and are now ready to be done — rents that haven’t moved in years, units that haven’t been turned, maintenance that’s been deferred because deferring it was rational at their stage. That isn’t a broken building. It’s a succession problem with a roof on it. Buying one and actually running it is the most reliable inefficiency we’ve found.

What we actually do

Most of the value is made after the closing.

Buying well matters. But the buildings we target are mispriced because they're run badly, not because they're priced badly — deferred maintenance, below-market rents, an absentee owner, a manager who stopped answering the phone.

That gap doesn't close on a spreadsheet. It closes with turns, vendor accountability, rent rolls that get worked every month, and someone who picks up when a resident calls at nine on a Sunday.

Which is why we don't outsource it. The team that underwrites a deal is the team that operates it.

How the portfolio was built

$7.9M of equity became a $30M+ portfolio.

Not by adding money to it — by getting the same dollar back out and putting it to work again, while still owning the building it came from.

Cash-out refinance

Fairmount returned every dollar of original capital within three years — tax-free — and we kept the building.

1031 exchange

Trade into a building that pays the same from month one and can double on our own work. Three rentals into a 12-unit that tripled NOI on day one.

Self-directed IRA

Eight Scottsdale units held free and clear inside a retirement account, compounding tax-deferred.

Don't sell the compounding

Buy, improve, stabilize, refinance, exchange. Basis compounds and tax defers instead of being harvested at every exit.

The full playbook

Built to institutional standard

We built institutional infrastructure at a size where nobody bothers.

Every LGL Capital acquisition sits in its own single-purpose vehicle — its own operating agreement, bank account, books and investors — under a Delaware holding company, with a separate GP entity and management company. That's how institutional sponsors structure deals, at a size where almost nobody bothers.

Underneath it, a real management company: 173 doors, a designated broker, client trust accounting, an Arizona compliance library, and a written procedure behind every recurring decision. Built from nothing, by us.

What we offer

Four ways to work with us.

We didn’t buy a platform, we built one — deal by deal, on our own balance sheet, with our own money at risk first. Every piece of it is now something we can put to work for someone else.

Capital

Invest alongside us

LGL Capital, co-founded with a partner who spent a decade at Bridgewater Associates. Every acquisition sits in its own single-purpose vehicle under a Delaware holding company — separate books, separate bank account, institutional governance. Two hold profiles: shorter value-add, and long-hold compounding.

We put our own capital in every deal we sponsor. Participation is by relationship, and it begins with a conversation rather than a website.

Operations

Let us run your building

LGL Property Management runs 173 doors in the Phoenix metro with our own people — leasing, maintenance, renovation and resident experience under one roof, with a designated broker, client trust accounting and a written procedure behind every recurring decision.

We manage our own assets the same way. Our incentives don’t need to be aligned with yours — they already are.

Underwriting

Put your deal in front of us

Engage us to underwrite a building you’re looking at. We normalize the seller’s T12, price the turns and the deferred maintenance, build the rent roll back up from actual leases, and tell you what the thing really earns — including when the answer is walk away.

A flat fee, through RandDLiving Legacy Partners. You keep the model and the reasoning, not just a number.

Planning

Build the path to your first acquisition

Most people aren’t stuck on which building — they’re stuck on how to get to the closing table at all. We map what you already have: equity in a primary residence, a stale 401(k) that could become a self-directed IRA, a rental that should be exchanged, income that will or won’t support agency debt.

Out of it comes a sequence, with the tax and financing mechanics named. It’s the plan we wish someone had drawn for us in 2013.

Start a conversation

Field Notes

We publish the numbers most operators won't.

Real turn costs. What an eviction actually runs in Maricopa County. How a seller moves repairs below the NOI line to make a building look better than it is.

Not curriculum — the deals we're working on right now.

Read the notes

Most recent

The $66,000 line item

How a seller moved repairs below the NOI line — and what the building actually earned once we put them back.

What an eviction really costs · Why we underwrite at 0%