We know it can feel overwhelming when you first begin to consider real estate syndications as an investment option.  As you start reviewing real estate syndication opportunities, how do you evaluate and choose which offering to invest in?

It’s possible you’ll begin to receive a seemingly endless string of opportunity emails, each with a summary that could be 50 pages long! Although this is exciting, without knowing specific tactics, your goals, and a strategy for sifting through these, that aimlessness will cause you to feel overwhelmed.

We’ll show you a step-by-step process to evaluate every potential deal in under 10 minutes and quickly eliminate those that are not a good fit for your investment goals and risk tolerance. 

 

The First Glance

New deal alert emails are like a surprise gift. You had no idea it was coming, but you can’t wait to rip it open and see what’s inside.

The emails you receive about new deals are full of valuable information, but a few highlights you’ll want to pick out at first glance are the type of asset, market, hold time, minimum investment, and funding deadline.

If you open the email simply aiming to extract only these pieces of information, you’ve already avoided unnecessary information overload. All you’re trying to do at this point is to find out if these data points match your investing goals. If not, there’s no reason to waste any further time or energy. As an example:

You receive a deal alert and pull these details:

– Asset Type: B-class self-storage

– Market: Tyler, TX

– Hold time: 5 years

– Minimum investment: $50,000

– Fund Deadline: 3 weeks from today 

With this simple, at-a-glance information, you’re able to immediately see that although this is the perfect asset class and market you wanted, you are aiming for a longer hold or an emerging market. Or perhaps you already know you need more than 3 weeks to access your capital.  PASS.

Another deal will pop up shortly and you’ll get opportunity after opportunity to practice this little exercise. At some point, the details will all be exactly what you’ve been waiting for and you’ll get to dig deeper.

 

The Numbers

Once you’ve decided a deal’s initial look aligns with your goals, it’s time to dig further into the investment summary and explore.

As an example, you might learn that this particular deal is offering:

– 7% preferred return

– 8% average cash-on-cash return

– 15% IRR

– 18% average annual return including sale

– 1.8x equity multiple

 

But what does all that mean for you and your $50,000?

In time, you’ll get lightning-quick at this and know right away what all of that means, but right now, let’s pretend this is your first go.

 

Preferred Return & Cash-on-Cash Return

Preferred return, a common structure for deals, means that the first percentage (in this case, 7%) of returns go 100% to the limited partner passive investors. Sponsors don’t receive any returns until the property earns more than that.

This means that if you invested 50K and everything went according to plan, you should see 7% of $50,000 or $3,500 this year, which breaks down to $291.67 per month.

Since cash-on-cash returns are projected at 8%, that tells you that this deal is projected to pay out above the 7% preferred return at some point.

The cash-on-cash return = net operating income (NOI)/total cash investment.  This rate of return ratio calculates the total cash earned on the total cash invested.  The amount of the total cash earned is based on the annual pre-tax cash flow.  A good cash-on-cash target is 8% or more.

 

Equity Multiple

The next fun number on the list is the equity multiple. This number quickly tells you how much your investment is expected to grow during the project.

Continuing on the example above, your $50,000 investment with a 1.8x equity multiple should work out to approximately $90,000 once the asset is sold. This total return accounts for the cash flow distributions during the hold period plus the profits from the sale.

We typically aim for a 1.75x – 2x equity multiple on deals, so you can use that as your benchmark.

 

Average Annual Return & IRR

The last two metrics you should focus on when initially examining a new investment offering are the average annual return and the IRR.

The average annual return tells you what the average earnings are, averaged over the hold time.

In the example above, we discovered that your $50,000 is expected to grow to $90,000 over the next 5 years. That total return is 1.8x of your original investment, and when divided over the 5 year hold period, we see that your average annual return is 18%.

The IRR (internal rate of return) is the average annual return (in this example 15%) and adjusts for the time value of money. Since the majority of your earnings are expected later, at the sale, and time has cost associated with it, the IRR takes that into account. An IRR of 14% or more is a great target.

 

The Decision

After this 10 minute analysis of these data points, you should be able to tell is this deal is a potential yes or no for you. This isn’t a final decision and it doesn’t mean you’re putting in a wire transfer this afternoon, but it does mean you can decide to spend more time doing your due diligence on this deal.

If these numbers align with your investing goals, you can go ahead and let the sponsor know you’re interested by requesting the full investment summary or submitting a soft reserve.

One final point you should consider, the sponsor or lead operator’s track record, is probably the most important criteria when selecting an investment opportunity.  It’s important to understand the market, the supply and demand, the assumptions made during the underwriting process, the feasibility of the business plan, and the exit strategies.

 

Conclusion

New investment deal opportunities can be exciting, but if you get lost in the weeds too quickly, they can become overwhelming too.

Whether you’ve had funds ready for weeks or are still in limbo getting them rolled over into a self-directed IRA, it’s imperative to know exactly what you’re looking for so you can jump on the perfect deal and minimize wasted time.

With this 10-minute process, you’ll be able to identify if a deal is even worth your time and energy right off the bat.