Peter Lohmann's Mailing List - Issue #6

May 11, 2021

VC in property management, our NEW office, and a special podcast episode. Let's go!

Venture Capital in Property Management

I've just published a brand new article on Medium listing every VC-backed property management company I could identify. Here's a teaser, click here for the full article:

Darwin Homes (founded 2018, Austin). Raised 19M. “Darwin Homes is the property management platform that elevates the rental experience for property owners and residents.” CEO Ryan Broderick.

Doorstead (founded 2019, San Francisco). Raised 16M. “Technology-operations brokerage that provides full-service property management and cash-flow certainty to residential property owners.” CEO Ryan Waliany.

Castle (founded 2015 in Detroit, defunct as of 2018). Raised 13M. “Castle manages rental homes for landlords using automation and on-demand labor.” CEO Max Nussenbaum.

It remains to be seen if the VC model is a good fit for property management company growth & expansion. Is the aggressive growth mandated by venture capital investors compatible with such a high-touch, boots-on-the-ground type of business? I honestly don't know. Most of these companies are running custom property management software (built in-house), which does have great potential in my opinion. But will it be enough?

Go read the full article here!

Owner Occupied: Special Episode with John Wilson

The Owner Occupied podcast has had a great few episodes recently if you haven't checked it out yet. Our most popular episode to date was an interview with John Wilson, where we discussed his plumbing business, scaling home service companies, KPIs, and more. You can listen to that episode & subscribe here, or you can watch the video version on YouTube here.

Guest Podcast Appearances

I've been on a few podcasts as a guest recently. You can see the full list here, and below are the two most recent:

  • I was a guest on the Let’s Buy a Business podcast, where I discuss finding a partner, bridging the gap from quitting your day job to pursuing your entrepreneurial dream, and how to acquire competitors.

  • I was a guest on the Multifamily Wealth podcast episode 46, where I discuss property management.

Miscellaneous Updates

I've signed up to hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim, in one day, with about 25 other property management company owners and a few affiliated folks. Oh and it's in July. I've already started training, but it's going to be tough. As part of the trip we'll be fundraising for the Underground Railroad charity. More info to follow. If you have any tips on how to make this 24.5 mile hike more bearable, I'm all ears!

We bought a new building for our property management company - about 6800 square feet of office/warehouse flex located in Gahanna (just to the east of Columbus). We're moving in two weeks and I'm happy about finally getting some warehouse space, and owning our own office. We've been renting all this time, and we're long overdue to put down some roots.

I decided to surprise our agent with a check for the buyer-side commission, which was fun:

Call Joe Peffer if you are looking to buy or sell in Central Ohio!

As always, thanks for reading! Enjoy the rest of your week. -Peter