TLP14: Being an Active and Passive Investor with Jenny Gou
Today, we’ll have an exciting discussion with Jenny Gou of Vertical Street Ventures! Jenny is a passive real estate investor and syndicator. Before she got into real estate, Jenny worked at Procter and Gamble as Sales Director. She wanted to diversify her retirement portfolio, so she started investing in single-family homes. After a while, they learned about multifamily and decided to shift to syndications. Jenny saw the potential and opportunities in real estate, so she left her corporate job to work full-time in this industry.
Listen to Jenny share her experiences, and valuable lessons learned so far in her journey. She’ll give tips and advice on investing passively and actively in real estate. Click that play button now!
Key Points from This Episode:
- Jenny was a Sales Director for Procter and Gamble before she got into real estate.
- She and her husband decided to diversify their retirement portfolio and invested in single-family homes.
- They wanted a way to scale better and faster and learned about multifamily.
- On January 21, 2022, they launched their own company called Vertical Street Ventures.
- She invested in her first three deals as a passive investor and did two deals as a syndicator.
- If you want to invest more as a limited partner, do your due diligence on the marketplace and the sponsorship team.
- Jenny shares what she looks for in those two areas.
- What is Jenny’s advice to people who took both the active and passive route to find larger deals?
- Jenny talks about the biggest mistake that you should avoid as an LP.
- Jenny shares great examples of transparency and communication and how these two are key to having a successful deal.
- What would Jenny change in the industry to make it better?
- Who does Jenny want to give a shout-out to?
Tweetables:
“If you’re wanting to look into becoming a little more active or eventually full time into this business like I am, couple of things, obviously, learn. Start the education of what it looks like to be a syndicator.” [00:06:46]
“I think the key here is focus. Because real estate is such a big broad industry. It could be pulled in 50 different directions like you mentioned, and that’s very distracting. So, if you can focus even on the asset type, the market, down to, the two or three submarkets, even. That is going to only help you in the long run, because this is a people business, it’s a relationship business. So, the better that you can build strong relationships in those focused areas, the easier it is for you to take down deals and grow your business.” [00:10:58]
“I'm not perfect, by any means. I've definitely made a lot of mistakes. But the important thing is, you know, you have to learn and grow from them." [00:11:44]
Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:
Vertical Street Ventures website
About Jenny Gou
Jenny is a Managing Partner at Vertical Street Ventures, which was established to help individuals achieve their financial goals through passive investing in real estate. As one of the Founders, she currently oversees Asset Management and Investor Relations. Her Real Estate Portfolio includes Single Family Homes and over 950+ Multifamily Units across the country.
Listen On
