The Best Ever CRE Show JF2948: Gaining Leverage as a Passive Investor ft. Dr. Pranay Parikh
Dr. Pranay Parikh is a medical doctor who began investing in real estate to grow his income. He bought a four-unit multifamily property but soon realized his time would be better spent focusing on his full-time career and investing 100% passively. He decided to help other doctors, dentists, and healthcare professionals do the same.
Today, Pranay is the president of Ascent Equity Group, which helps individuals build wealth through low-risk, high-growth multifamily investments in strong markets throughout the U.S. with a focus on healthcare professionals. He owns $200M in CRE, 1,200 units, and four properties as a JV, and is also an LP of over $1B in investments. In this episode, he shares why he believes in managing the manager, his criteria for vetting sponsors and deals, and how he gains leverage with operators.
1. Managing the Manager
Ever the actively passive real estate investor, Pranay has weekly phone calls with property management. “Anytime there’s more than $1,000 spent, we want to know why,” Pranay says. “And we always compare that to pro forma.” He tasks himself with maximizing the profit for his investors by ensuring that the sponsor or operator is sticking to the plan.
3. Vetting Sponsors and Deals
When vetting a sponsor, Pranay looks at their track record first. He prefers sponsors who have been through a recession and who have been working together for at least five years. He likes to meet them face to face and walk the properties as well. Reputation is also a major factor. “It’s a really small world in real estate,” Pranay says. “You’d be surprised.”
When it comes to deal selection, Ascent employs its own asset manager. “Usually allocators like us don't have their own asset management, but we really believe in managing the manager,” Pranay says. “So we are very selective with the deals we look at.” They underwrite each deal from scratch, then have their asset manager examine it as well before signing on.
3. Gaining Leverage with Operators
Ascent typically brings anywhere from 90% to 97.5% of the equity to a joint venture deal. This gives them major decision rights. They have institutional-level oversight over the properties, which allows them to visit sites as often as every other week.
The number-one priority, Pranay says, is always to make sure the business plan is getting taken care of. “We have investor overrides for the decisions, buy/sell rights — we have all of that,” he says. “We really want the power to make sure our investor is taken care of.”
Dr. Pranay Parikh | Real Estate Background
- President of Ascent Equity Group, which helps individuals build wealth through low-risk, high-growth multifamily investments in strong markets throughout the U.S. with a focus on healthcare professionals (doctors, dentists, etc). They do joint ventures with operators to buy value-add multifamily properties.
- Portfolio:
- Joint venture
- $200M in CRE
- 1,200 units
- Four properties
- LP of over $1B investments
- Based in: Los Angeles, CA
- Say hi to him at:
- Best Ever Book: Farewell, Godspeed by Cyrus M. Copeland
- Greatest Lesson: If you are honest and transparent with your investors, they will give you the benefit of the doubt. With how turbulent the debt market has been, on our last deal, they tried to change the terms the day before closing. We had to go back and offer our investors the chance to back out (only one did that out of 300 investors).
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