Syndicators made big purchases that are unraveling with high interest rates, adding distress to an already troubled US property market.
Nathe started following a wealth influencer named Mir Jafer Ali Joffrey, who went by the nickname “Buck.” He had an earlier career as a cosmetic surgeon, with a Chicago-area clinic that offered liposuction and Brazilian butt lifts. After striking wealth with real estate, he turned to full-time investing about a decade ago.
Joffrey hosted a podcast called Wealth Formula dedicated to personal finance and helping people invest their way to an easier life. One guest was LePage, a former project manager for telecom and utility companies who began flipping houses in Phoenix after the financial crisis. She parlayed that into a business and formed Western Wealth Capital with David Steele in 2014. The company turned into a success; LePage, in an email to Bloomberg, said the firm had average annualized returns of more than 30% from 2014 to 2022.
The Vancouver-based company focused on markets with growing populations and strong job growth like Arizona and Texas, LePage said on one of Joffrey’s podcasts. But the real magic came after the acquisition, when Western Wealth ran through a checklist with 84 improvements, from installing new appliances to planting flowers. The idea was to make renovations that allowed the company to boost rents and then sell the property at a healthy profit.
The concept of value-add investing fit nicely into the “infinite returns model” that Joffrey boiled down for members of his investor club as a “mathematical” formula for success: “Wealth=Leverage (Mass x Velocity).” Velocity was the key, he said; the faster the return of capital flowed in, the quicker it could be recycled into other opportunities.
“Using this model, one early investor who deployed a total of $750K over several WWC opportunities and then kept reinvesting proceeds from refinances and divestments has now turned that $750K into over $4 million in principal!,” he said in an August 2021 email promoting Western Wealth’s 274-unit The Carling on Frankford outside of Dallas.