Steed Talker

Real Estate Investing Abundance

REIA 287 Matthew Ryan: Solutions for Uncertain Times: Building Companies that Tackle Socio-economic Issues Through Entrepreneurship

Matthew Ryan’s passion is building companies that tackle socio-economic issues through entrepreneurship. He strongly believes in the ability of the private sector to solve society’s most complex problems and that entrepreneurs are the foundation of it all.

Listen to the podcast here or on your favorite podcast app:

Watch the Episode here:

Main Points:

The late Richard Rogers, a renowned architect, once said, “We need to rediscover the classical order of things, where there was a mix of rich and poor. There are two problems tearing the world apart, and they are climate change and the gap between the rich and the poor. We need dense, mixed cities that open doors instead of closing them.” 

Bullet Points: 

  • How did we start and what did we start with, and why: Value-add investing
  • Why did we stop this? What would be the next steps?
  • How we stumbled into co-living/ micro apartments and the why behind it
  • Just how big is the opportunity for co-living/ micro-apartments?
  • What can investors do to get in on this growing trend?

Connect with Matthew Ryan:

Biography of Matthew Ryan:

Matthew started his first company in 2010 in Charlotte, NC, focusing on energy efficiency and green building in residential and light commercial buildings. He did this after learning that a mere 3% reduction in energy demand would mitigate the need for a controversial coal plant in his home state of South Carolina. He broke profitability in his third year, coming off the Great Recession with no prior experience in the field and landed four grant/research projects. He worked with dozens of track and custom home builders certifying homes under the Energy Star program, among other Green Building programs (NAHB Green, Earthcraft, LEED). Also worked to certify and perform subcontracting duties on two hundred multifamily retrofits across three different projects. Certified the first-ever “green” Habitat for Humanity project in South Carolina. Built the spec, which helped them qualify for a $5,000 grant, only costing them an additional $2k in costs. They launched a home performance residential subcontracting arm for homeowners. One of the first in the country to implement data collection via tablet along with estimated energy savings, including comfort, air quality, and durability improvements. Was able to produce reports and customer proposals in real-time: this reduced data collection and reporting timeframe by 35%. He has been in over five hundred residential and light commercial buildings as a subcontractor, contractor, inspector, and investor.

He started re-viv in 2016, capitalizing on his passion for high-performance construction, community development, and sustainable buildings. The catalyst was a community member in the neighborhood where heI bought his first investment property: Ms. Pam. Ms. Pam walked every day to the elementary school where she worked and took the bus to her night shift job to provide for her granddaughter. As he grew to understand how more investment and development could change the neighborhood and potentially push out the Ms. Pams of the world, he felt a desire to find a better balance. In 2015, he moved to San Francisco to base his new endeavor with the idea of revitalizing communities through impactful investment real estate investment strategies. To him, affordable housing that is walkable, bikeable, and close to necessary retail and job centers shouldn’t be just for the affluent.

Below is a list of accomplishments to date:

  • Started with $95,000 in 2013 and currently own $4.5 million dollars of real estate with another $2.0 million in phase two build-outs via lot splits and ground-up residential.
  • Average IRR of approx. 22% across realized projects with $1 million of equity invested.
  • We have grown our construction pipeline by 5x over the last year.
  • Launched our Opportunity Zone Fund in 2019 and raised initial funding of $2 million in equity.
  • The current pipeline needs are $2 million in equity for current projects and another $4.5 million for projects in various stages of negotiation