Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Bramante.
Joseph is co-founder and CEO of TriArc Real Estate Partners, a wholly integrated multifamily investment company. He purchased his first multifamily property in the US in 2011, sight unseen, while working as a business team lead for ExxonMobil in Papua, New Guinea. Today, he and his business partners, Carrie Breneman and Deborah Newsome, have grown a portfolio of over 1100 units, increasing NOI (net operating income) by over 80% on average within 48 months post-acquisition.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been an adventure for sure, but I can’t say it’s been easy. I landed in the multifamily real estate industry by accident. As mentioned in my intro, I was working as a business team lead for ExxonMobil in Papua New Guinea in 2010, two years after the US housing market collapsed. Many of my colleagues were investing in real estate, and that piqued my interest. I’ve always been a numbers guy—my bachelor’s degree is in Civil Engineering, and I had a 4.0 in mathematics—so I developed a spreadsheet and estimated that I’d need a loan for $3M to buy 80 rental houses over two years. As you can imagine, bank after bank laughed at me as I tried to secure a loan from the other side of the world to finance the acquisitions, but one lender said, “Why don’t you buy an 80-unit apartment complex instead?” I started looking into it, and in 2011, I purchased my first multifamily property, sight unseen, while still living in Papua New Guinea. It was supposed to be a private investment, but it morphed into a business.
Six months later, I was back in Houston with my property at 25% vacant and four units under renovation when I was notified the insurance I’d purchased was a scam, my property had asbestos, and ExxonMobil was eliminating my job. My property was negative cash flowing and required constant equity infusions to keep it running. And all I could hear in my head was my stepdad’s voice saying, “you’re never going to amount to anything,” which is what he’d told me as a kid and I couldn’t bear to prove him right!
But I’m not someone who backs down from a challenge. I moved away from home immediately after high school and worked every holiday and summer to pay for college. I graduated with student loans, a $150 deficit in my bank account, and three maxed-out credit cards, but I graduated. So the day after all the bad news, I paid for a membership at a local real estate education club. That’s where I met my partners, Carrie and Deborah, who are 30-year property management veterans. The club advised me to sell my property and take a loss. Instead, we leased it down to zero, executed a massive $30k/unit renovation, and then leased it back up. It was the most stressful nine months of my life, but it was the right decision, and it paid out over a 200% return and I still own the property today.
In 2013, we partnered and acquired three more multifamily properties, spent $5K to $30k per unit on renovations, and increased the NOI across all by over 80%. On the second acquisition, we almost ran out of time and risked losing the deal, but I switched loans two weeks before closing and salvaged it. On my seventh deal, we had to raise $7M in 30 days after the original investor backed out. There have been many struggles on many deals, but my partners and I have grown very experienced at overcoming obstacles.
TriArc Real Estate Partners – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
TriArc Real Estate Partners is a company that combines the skill and expertise of an institutional investor with the speed and efficiency of a start-up. As partners, we’re highly driven. We’ve owned or operated over 43,000 units and $1.7B in assets over the course of our careers, and together, we’ve built a premier real estate investment company. Our focus is acquiring underperforming multifamily properties which we then improve through value-engineering, heavy renovation, sometimes over $30K+/unit, and management savvy. We develop, redevelop, acquire, and operate apartment communities throughout Houston and the surrounding region. We’re known for delivering on our promises, pushing through challenging situations, and communicating professionally and with a high level of detail.
What I’m most proud of is the family culture we’ve cultivated and how the team has performed over the years despite numerous external obstacles including floods, hurricanes, and tough market conditions. Our partners have all worked for major corporations and brought with us the systems and processes we learned, but we also strive to retain the nimbleness and speed of a small company. We are very strategic about how we grow, and our goal is to acquire over 20,000 units by 2030.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Every deal I’ve closed has been double the size of the previous one, so closings are always memorable for me. But moving into our first office space as a company has been a pinnacle for me in my career. Our office was in a two-bedroom apartment before, and it was slightly embarrassing to have people in. Moving into our office space seemed to solidify TriArc as a real company even though we’d already been in business for four years at that point. TriArc has a home now, and we’re proud to show off the space.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2855 Mangum Rd
Suite 459
Houston, TX 7092 - Website: www.triarcrep.com
- Phone: 281-836-4464
- Email: info@triarcrep.com
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/josephbramante
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