RG 098 – Impacting Local Communities Through Real Estate Syndication with Bruce Petersen
About Bruce
- Bruce is based and invests in central Texas
- Bruce spent 20 years in retail
- Bruce officially retired and then got into real estate
Nuts and Bolts
Bruce Peterson is based in Central Texas and syndicates large family deals, so far he’s done deals on over 900 units. He had a difficult start in life from a poor background and barely made it out of high school. He struggled with college and got a job as a stock broker until the market collapsed but he always hated it. After the crash he went to work for a local bank as a drive through teller and then went into retail for 20 years. After he retired from retails he was living quietly within his budget but realized he was lonely. He decided to get itno real estate to fill his time, so he found a mentor and got started. Since then he’s made more money, had more fun and gained more personal rewards then he thought possible.
His interest in real estate was piqued after a conversation with a friend, but he realized he didn’t know enough to go out on his own. He spoke to friends who were real estate agents and did some research online looking for a central Texas mentor. He found a coaching group and paid to join. He bought his first property in 2012, 48 units, for $1.6 million. He raised $575,000, put in $115,000 of his own money and then raised the rest through networking. By networking he formed a weekly real estate group that met at his local Starbucks and has now grown to a mailing list of 300-400 people. He was a member of other real estate networking groups and so he went to those meetings and brought back ideas until they outgrew Starbucks.
He sold his units in 2014 and moved into teaching real estate full time for a year and a half and put his own investments on hold. In 2015 he moved back into doing his own thing and bought a 256-unit and a 192-unit property in Austin and a 292-unit property in San Antonio. He sources deals a a 6-6.25 CAP rate and turns them into 7-9% cash on cash return. He buys stabilized assets rather than properties that need work and turning around. Bruce owns his own property development company and his wife is his book keeper. He’s in the process of hiring a regional manager who can do the walk arounds, as Bruce is currently doing 2 walk arounds per month on all properties. He also started his own construction company after a couple of bad experiences with general contractors.
Top Tips
- Most important habit – He checks each property P&L every day
- Most influential person – His friend Terry
- Most important failure – Started a business loaning money to the oil industry but when the sector dried up he lost $400,000
- Contact – bruce@apt-guy.com
Podcast – apartmentinvestorpodcast.com
