Chris & John
- Oct 31, 2019
- 2 min read

EP 09: The Full Circle with Sonya Rocvil

Updated: Nov 4, 2019

Today we are joined on the show by Sonya Rocvil, founder of Bedrock Real Estate Investors. Sonya’s interest in real estate lead her from a career in accounting into passive and thereafter full time active investing. She speaks to us today from her position four deals down the road of syndication, in which she has focussed specifically on multifamily complexes. Her background in finance has given her the ability to analyze deals on paper with extreme precision, but she gets into the advantages of a multitiered approach to deal analysis. Properties should always be visited in person because this gives the operator a feel for their viability that financial statements just cant reflect.

Having partners with different approaches and backgrounds can be very helpful in this respect. We all then take a deep dive into the many advantages of approaching real estate investment passively initially. This approach allows passive investors to learn the game, make connections, expand their portfolio, access deals, and to find out if they truly love real estate enough to make the transition into active investing. We then talk about what can go wrong for a syndicator, meaning the grass is not necessarily greener on the side of active investment. Going through these dips and coming out for the better at the other end can turn you into a more trustworthy syndicator though. Join us to deepen your understanding of the intricacies of passive and active investment today.

Key Points From This Episode:

Sonya’s transition from corporate into passive, and then syndicating 4 multifamily deals.
Having a financial background enabled Sonya to analyze deals well on paper.
The finance background approach can lead to over-conservatism.
Site visits, as well as financial statement reading, are necessary for deal analysis.
Partnering up leads to a multitiered approach to deal analysis.
A property that looked good on paper can prove disappointing after a site visit.
The value of talking to locals rather than sellers to analyze markets.
The pros of passively investing initially: time, networking, credibility, deal access, learning.
Investing with an experienced sponsor is as important as investing in a good deal.
Sponsorship is not a romantic ‘get rich’ method but involves risks such as fire damage.
Sonya’s story about how fires in her 48-unit property resulted in higher revenue.
The importance of being able to pivot as an operator because things go wrong.

Tweetables:

“These properties are at a location. They are physical and they are somewhere, and you have to see where they are to really understand what is happening with them.”

— @Sonya Rocvil [0:15:27]

“You want to be aligned with somebody who knows what they are doing in a market, and that’s only going to come from finding an off-market deal or investing in someone’s deal.” – @ @johnc429 [0:27:33]

“Being passive and then trying to learn more as you go – you’re going to realize at some point whether you should continue to be a passive investor or switch over to the active side.” – @ChrisGrenzig [28:41]