Chris & John
- Oct 24, 2019
- 3 min read

EP 07: Choosing the Right Investors and Partners for a Deal with John Casmon

Updated: Oct 30, 2019

On today’s show, we have John Casmon, the founder of Casmon Capital Group, joining in on our conversation. John has tons of experience, having helped families invest in over $70 million in multifamily apartments. He also hosts the Target Market Insights podcast and is the co-founder of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit. In this episode, we discuss the importance of making sure that you get into a deal with the right people and being very clear about expectations from the get-go. Knowing your investor will save you a lot of problems later on and will minimize your risk of getting involved with someone who ends up hampering the deal. From our own experience, we share the red flags that come up in conversations with potential investors and advise you on the type of questions to ask to ensure that the party is the right fit.

Deals do not always go as planned and having the best people on your team will make the unpredictable process much easier and more satisfying. We also discuss the relevance of partnership structures, considerations for the number of role-players in a deal and why parties need to have some skin in the game by being willing to also accept downside risk. While getting experience is an important piece of growing in the business, we caution against taking on every deal that comes your way, stressing the importance of remaining calculated and disciplined. Be sure to join us for another great talk!

Key Points From This Episode:

John’s background in marketing and experiencing the bankruptcy of his workplace.
Realizing that he wanted to be in control of where he lived and his future.
How John approached the transition into the multifamily syndication space.
Getting into partnerships, building relationships and communicating the different roles.
Thoughts about whether you find the money or the deal first.
Things to consider before getting into a partnership within another partnership.
Being clear about expectations, who the individuals are and how decisions are being made.
The necessity of really knowing your investor and what they want out of the investment.
Red flags and other advice for identifying whether you’ve got the kind of investor you want.
Why it’s important to let investors know that they could lose every single dollar they put in.
A partnership structure that John would have done differently.
Why structure is such an important aspect of any partnership deal.
Thinking about how a deal is split and the importance of having skin in the game.
Understanding that deals don’t always go as planned and learning from wins and losses.
Having the discipline not to get involved in every deal that comes your way.
Getting partners who are proactive in their thinking and who can foresee issues.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“At that moment I realized two things: One, I want to be in control of where I live and then two, I want to be in control of my future.” — @jcasmon [0:05:26]

“The one thing you want to be crystal clear on is the expectation around how the partnership is going to be.” — @jcasmon [0:14:39]

“If you’re great at multifamily or real estate investing, that does not mean you are going to be great at syndication.” — @jcasmon [0:16:21]

“You need to have an incentive to deliver and it has to be more than just upside, there’s got to be some downside risk.” — @jcasmon [0:37:29]