Always Looking for Ways to Reinvent
I remember it like it was yesterday. My business partner and I were in the process of closing a construction loan to continue developing a 19-acre retail center in Arizona. It was 2008 and the financial and real estate collapse of the Great Recession was upon us. Capital dried up immediately, deals fell through and panic ensued. What followed were years of struggle for most in real estate as the subprime crisis led to the bursting of the housing bubble.
I had worked in the real estate industry since graduating from business school in 2002. In Las Vegas in March of 2011, I met with Wayne Hughes, the founder of Public Storage, and two members of his executive team—Marvin Lotz and David Singelyn. They wanted to look at houses and evaluate the potential of single-family rentals. Wayne not only recognized the great opportunity that resulted from the bursting of the housing bubble, but he also understood the need to move forward quickly and boldly to achieve the goal of creating a new paradigm in residential real estate. He realized that the key would be in execution, and that the real challenge would revolve around scale and building an operational platform to efficiently manage assets spread across the nation. Wayne’s vision to institutionalize this historically mom-and-pop industry would change SFR forever.
The Start
As part of our Las Vegas meeting, I drove them all over the city, scouting properties, evaluating neighborhoods and discussing the model. The idea for American Homes 4 Rent (AH4R), a real estate investment trust focused on SFR, was solidified shortly after this house-hunting trip, and I joined this exciting new start-up in September 2011. Today, AH4R has built, acquired, renovated, leased and now manages a portfolio of 53,000 high quality single-family homes throughout the U.S.
After high school, I went to UCLA to study Business Economics and subsequently earned my MBA.
UCLA to Real World
Upon graduation, I started my career in real estate acquisitions for an owner/manager of multifamily and commercial properties in California. Here I applied what I had learned in business school to real world deals including underwriting, fundraising and management. Most importantly, I was taught how to look for value opportunities.
After a few other opportunities I came across a company that controlled the apartment leasing market of West Los Angeles. Their subscription-based model leveraged the digital marketplace to connect landlords and renters, creating a convenient and efficient leasing experience.
I then relocated to Las Vegas, where I experienced firsthand the difficulty in renting an apartment. While this experience was awful, renting a single-family home was even worse. The creative entrepreneur in me longed to design a rental experience with the customer in mind—where technology was even more broadly implemented to eliminate inefficiencies and create a vastly improved customer experience.
Beginning with AH4R
From my early discussions with Wayne Hughes, I could see that we were about to pioneer the new concept of the institutional SFR owner/operator, and I was hooked. I joined AH4R in acquisitions and began selecting markets and building out our acquisition platform. Over the first year, the company expanded its footprint across the country.
We pioneered the use of directed technology solutions to remove friction from the touring and leasing process. At each step of the property lifecycle, we developed and deployed new tools to create a significant advantage over our competitors, while we efficiently scaled up operations and attracted the necessary capital to fuel and manage this exceptional growth.
A Better Way of Doing Business
We created a technology-driven platform that allows our current and prospective residents to manage their entire rental experience online. Through our proprietary Let Yourself In mobile leasing technology, prospective renters can drive to a home, tour the property, apply, get approved and sign a lease in a matter of hours. After move-in, residents can pay rent, request maintenance and communicate with their property managers seamlessly online.
One of our latest innovations focuses on another area of inefficiency in the industry: home maintenance. Initially, we utilized third-party vendors for all our maintenance and turn work. However, we soon realized that we could apply technology here as well. So, we established a national maintenance team and developed a logistics system to manage their work orders, schedules, and routes. The result is a more effective and cost-efficient way to serve our residents.
Our strategy stems from an unrelenting focus on the resident that has shaped our modern operating platform and continues to deliver solutions that are changing the industry. Very few companies have mastered scale, complexity and geography in such a short time. I am proud to be a part of AH4R and the reinvention of the SFR industry over the last nine years.
