Today we’d like to introduce you to Tzali Levin.
Tzali, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started in 2009, a little after the market crashed. I was working as a Property Manager for a Hard Money Lender who got stuck with a varied group of properties (Single Family homes, commercial projects, daycare centers, church’s etc.), I realized that I could buy properties in the metro Atlanta area for next to nothing and there were tons of properties available if I could only find some cash as you could not get a loan at the time. I started asking people I knew if they would be interested in buying Real Estate, most turned me down as everyone knew the market had crashed.. but I asked one guy who happened to be a Tenant at a medical building I managed, He did not seem like someone who had much but I was asking anyone who would listen, turns out, he had cash, lots of it. He ended up buying 45 houses and I ran the deals and managed the properties.
I found a few more investors over the years and built up to about 150 properties. Unfortunately, I did not know enough about management and definitely not on a large scale and at the end of 2012, I had to shut my doors, I found another company to outsource the management to and lost my position in the properties I had arranged to purchase. I was left with pretty much nothing. At the end of 2013, I had time to reflect on what went wrong and educated myself in what I needed to know, I convinced one of my previous investors who owned 40 houses to let me manage them again. He agreed, and the rest is history… we currently manage close to 450 homes and are working on expanding.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Hardly! From the first run which was a disaster (I ended up with huge amounts of personal debt and some angry investors) to having large ups and downs within almost every aspect of our business. A lot of trial and error.
Some examples of the struggles we had: Had an employee I really trysted steal close to $40,000 from us. A very large client sold a large portion of his portfolio due to us not performing and us losing a large percentage of our management business.
But from what I can tell, most of what we went through is commonplace in small businesses. Our success has and continues to come through hard work and seeing failure as a lesson rather then a setback.
Sapir Realty – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a Real Estate brokerage focusing primarily on management of single family investment homes. We handle A to Z for a lot of our clients including finding properties to buy, managing the renovation and keeping the books. We have helped a lot of investors with distressed portfolios turn them around and make then profitable. Our largest project was a 120 house portfolio with less then 50% occupancy to 90%+ within a few months including major renovations, increasing average rents and overall increasing their value to way more then it was when we got it. I think what sets us apart is that we really care about our clients, both owners and tenants. s opposed to seeing it all as an opportunity to squeeze a few more dollars out of Owner or Tenant, we see ourselves as service providers for both. We want our owners to make a profit (the reason they purchased the property in the first place) but want Tenants to have a nice place to live and not be treated as a number. We work hard at this goal and I think both our owners and tenants recognize and appreciate our efforts.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Honestly, I am still not sure. When I started, I said to myself: If I can just hit 100 houses under management, that would be the top of the world! But when I got there, it was nothing. So realized that can’t use a number of properties as measure. Have thought about many things but cannot pinpoint what I think actual success is.
The closest thing I can think of to describe as success is an inner calm and clear vision of what I am to do when I get up in the morning and end the day with knowledge that I gave it all I got. If I can live every day like that, I think I will consider that success.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2644 Candler Pkwy. Decatur, GA 30032
- Website: sapirrealty.com
- Phone: 678-487-7896
- Email: info@sapirrealty.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SapirRealty/
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