Cross Mountain Capital: A Multifamily Investor Finds Gold in the Mountain West

In this blog series, we’re looking at how the process for Acquisitions-as-a-Service really works. We appreciate that change isn’t easy: many investors still conduct all acquisitions in-house, because that’s the way it’s always been done. That’s why we developed an ebook that offers a handy overview—it’s a quick and easy read—but it definitely helps to hear about real world examples too.

What’s the thinking at investment entities that outsource the acquisitions process? How does the engagement begin, and how does the relationship move forward? What are the parameters involved, and how are metrics developed for success?

To be clear, there’s isn’t only one way to do this. Tech-enabled acquisitions around the country to find the right asset for the right investor at the right time and the right price requires a dynamic approach, which means that just about every aspect is quite flexible. There are best practices, to be sure, but each investor has unique needs and objectives, and the goal is always to do whatever it takes to achieve those, and even exceed them.

Here’s one example: Cross Mountain Capital, which specializes in acquiring multifamily assets that are mismanaged, underperforming, undervalued, and off-market. The company develops specific strategies to reposition these properties through operational efficiencies and renovations, as needed, to optimize the financial performance of each asset. This creates a passive income stream that builds long-term wealth, while also providing the ideal tax shelter.

A marketing campaign led the company to Offerd in May 2020, and even in that inhospitable business environment, it took only three days to reach an agreement to partner on acquisitions. At the time, CMC had around $50 million in assets under management, mostly focused on smaller properties in the upper Northeast. It wanted to go bigger and broader, growing exponentially in the next 36 months with a portfolio that stretched into the Mountain West.

Like most multifamily investors, CMC had always conducted acquisitions in-house. The company specifically brought in Offerd to supplement and enlarge the acquisitions team—it wanted to identify prime assets it could never find on its own. In such initiatives elsewhere, almost every search has to start from scratch; by partnering with Offerd, CMC gained access to a huge asset base that allowed it to refine its own search parameters.

That’s because Offerd tracks 90,000 ‘off-market’ assets around the country, with algorithms that encompass occupancy rates, demographic shifts, neighborhood incomes, population forecasts, educational levels and more, some 10,000 different categories in all. That’s how we find the best multifamily properties to match buyer and seller, and it all happens fast. Our skilled and experienced acquisitions team—including VPs, a managing director and a president of acquisitions—leverages this deep well of data and technology, as well an eight-prong approach to prospecting, to source a targeted and qualified deal flow for our partners.

In CMC’s case, the work has already paid off: Less than 60 days after launching the Offerd Proactive Sourcing Campaign, a target asset was not only identified and evaluated, it was under contract; the deal closed in another 90 days. For the record, Offerd has itself invested in that asset, and so far it’s performing even better than expected.

CMC has renewed its agreement with Offerd, and is looking forward to achieving more acquisitions goals in the months and years ahead.

We’ve got more real world examples coming—stay tuned.