How to Double Multifamily NOI Without Raising Rents | Class C Apartment Investing With Chris Wise

Chris Wise (00:00)

I’m Chris Wise. I own Wise Capital. It’s an investment company that purchases Class C multifamily apartments in the Midwest between twenty and sixty units. That’s our space. Included in that is a company called ForVue. It’s a predictive maintenance company. This is kind of one of our secret sauces on how we keep the costs and expenses down a lot more than what you would traditionally see, and how we can predict into the future so that we can

plan our exit accordingly. Also, in law firms, property management companies, and CRE advisoring companies as well.

Joseph Crooms (02:06)

Hey everybody, welcome to Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Joseph Crooms. I’m here today, joined by someone I’ve been looking and chatting with. His name is Chris Wise.

And he is a wise gentleman. Gonna be talking about some of his business. He’s gonna talk about—he’s into various things, but we’re gonna talk basic about real estate, but we’re gonna see how all his businesses, how they support one another. So hey Chris, tell everybody hello.

Chris Wise (02:35)

Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to this conversation.

Joseph Crooms (02:39)

All right. Well, Mr. Wise, here we go. I think our listeners are going to take something away from what you’re—how you’re approaching your business. So let me do this. So first of all, for people who may not be familiar with your business, give us the short version, especially if any of your other businesses are connected to real estate.

Chris Wise (02:55)

Yeah, the

short version is I’m Chris Wise. I own Wise Capital. It’s an investment company that purchases Class C multifamily apartments in the Midwest between twenty and sixty units. That’s our space. Included in that is a company called ForVue. It’s a predictive maintenance company. This is kind of one of our secret sauces on how we keep the costs and expenses down a lot more than what you would traditionally see, and how we can predict into the future so that we can

plan our exit accordingly. Also, in law firms, property management companies, and CRE advisoring companies as well.

Joseph Crooms (03:30)

Sounds good. Chris, is your company concentrating on the C market, those units? Is it more advantageous, or what—what’s the reason?

Chris Wise (03:38)

I think it’s opportunity for us. Class C—what we like to focus on is this social impact. And, how can we drive the most value, not just for our investors—when we’re getting these properties and how can we flip it or give a return that everyone’s gonna be happy with—but also where can we make the biggest impact? Working with veterans, some of the organizations in town through maybe Archdiocese,

all the way to HUD, obviously in Section 8. And so it’s a space that is often ignored. And I know more and more people are starting to get interested in it. But from our perspective, focusing on that social impact is how we can make the biggest impact internally and give back to our communities. And that’s what we’re focused on.

Joseph Crooms (04:21)

How long has your business been in operation on the real estate side?

Chris Wise (04:25)

Wise Capital was started in ’24. We started raising in ’25 and purchasing properties in ’25. So fairly early, fairly young.

Joseph Crooms (04:32)

So from when you first started, what is your book of business like now?

Chris Wise (04:36)

So the team has done over a thousand or flipped over a thousand properties, financed over a billion dollars. This is a new fund, obviously, like I said, starting ’24. We start raising ’25, purchasing ’25. We’re in the process of closing on another four-unit—or four apartments now. Typically we’re, like I said, we’re in that twenty to sixty range. So looking, we should be about four properties by

February. And so, the answer will be five by February. But we also exit. So we tell people we like to hold these properties for twenty-four to thirty-six months. Obviously we have a fund. We also do syndications. But we’re seeing the average hold is more like fifteen to eighteen, just because once we execute on the plan, start to see the value that we said we were gonna see, get the exit number, we’re out. We’re not—

this particular strategy for us is not a long-term hold every property for five, ten, fifteen years. This is more kind of a flip type strategy.

Joseph Crooms (06:19)

How is that translating to, say, on a monthly basis? How is that panning out for your company, wise income?

Chris Wise (06:25)

Pretty well, I guess. We’re still here and we’re growing, so that’s a great thing. They’re different levels, right? And so the difficult thing to answer on that is, you have the institution or fund level, you have the property level, you have ForVue with the predictive maintenance and the advisory side, and they’re all different kind of categories. As far as NOIs on a property,

taking one from about eighty thousand to a hundred and seventy-five thousand. Planned forward or forward-looking is probably about—it’s a hundred—just a hundred and seventy-nine now. And so you’re seeing quite a big jump. And it’s not so much having to do with just rents; it has to do with expenses. And one of probably the most overlooked and most misunderstood expenses is property management fees and then how RUBS are calculated, and

I can kind of go on and on on the expense side.

Joseph Crooms (07:13)

Do you have a property management company?

Chris Wise (07:15)

We do it in-house. All the properties are in-house. We have someone who runs that. They have a team underneath them. For us, that’s what makes the most sense. I tell people, no one loves your baby like you, and so that’s how we operate.

Joseph Crooms (07:26)

Like how much is that volume translating to revenue? Since 2025, how much is that bringing you a month?

Chris Wise (07:34)

Just at the property level, yeah. Per property is between—what revenue is, it’s probably about twenty-seven thousand a property revenue. NOI down is close to about—I average it and say about twenty thousand net for how we operate our expenses per property.

Joseph Crooms (07:51)

Thank you so much for saying that. So what markets are you operating primarily in now?

Chris Wise (07:57)

Right now, primarily in the Louisville area—Louisville, Kentucky. We’re focused on the Midwest. We do look and evaluate about two hundred properties a week, and that ranges from Indianapolis area, Cincinnati, Louisville, all the way down to about Nashville, so the Gallatin area.

Joseph Crooms (08:13)

So after the evaluation, well, what says, “Okay, this is a deal we should go after”? What controls that?

Chris Wise (08:19)

So internally we have our own process that we follow. We track about seven metrics. I don’t typically talk about them just because it has a lot to do with how we evaluate the true value. It has to be more than just raising rent. So it has to be looking at a certain return and exit multiple, but it has to be something that we can actually execute in a fifteen to eighteen-month period, knowing that, yes, we might say twenty-four to thirty-six months.

But there should be an actual plan that we can execute on in that window. And if it’s not, then we move on. So heavy exposure to the expense side and making sure that deferred maintenance is as accurate as we could possibly get it. And that’s partially why we built out ForVue. And then we also look at typical things that anyone else would see: Are the—are the current owners collecting on water and power? How are they doing that?

What’s their strategy there? Obviously, we save a lot of money because of the property management being in-house. And then we kind of go from there.

Joseph Crooms (09:15)

What has been the social impact that you’ve made on the communities that you’re serving? And is it the social impact that you want it to be?

Chris Wise (09:25)

Yeah. So I think the social impact that we’ve made up to this point—and we’re still, I always say we’re always learning, we’re always trying to improve—I think the social impact that we’ve seen so far is we’re getting individuals that were homeless into their first apartment or back into an apartment. They might have been—life has happened and

might have been on the streets for a while, and now they’re getting this next opportunity to get back in. That means working with organizations locally. We’re heavily involved with a lot of local organizations that help veterans, obviously HUD Section 8. But we’re heavily involved in these organizations so that if someone does have that need and we have the availability, then we’re able to work with them to make sure everything’s taken care of to get them in there. I think the hands-on approach

like that is really the social impact, right? I can always pull people together and we can have coffees and talk to tenants and talk about how we can improve the property, and we do those things. But to me, that’s a smaller social impact than being able to actually connect with a tenant, a real person. It’s so easy in this environment of investments and raising capital to think of individuals as numbers, and to back up and actually have that

true one-on-one connection where they see me, I see them. They know who—we know each other. You can have that conversation. You’re not—typically, you’re not hiding behind a desk and just collecting rents and looking at numbers. And that escalates into other things. We’ve seen individuals get an apartment, build their confidence up, and then get a job, and they may not have had a job in five, ten years. But it’s those conversations and genuinely being a part of that relationship

that I’ve seen the largest returns on. That’s—it’s very hard to quantify. It’s easy to talk about. It’s tough to say, “Well, here’s the real return,” without actually experiencing that.

Joseph Crooms (11:13)

Chris, from hearing you, I know relationships building is very important. So how have you connected with the right agencies to benefit your business also, so you’ll get the greater return?

Chris Wise (11:27)

Yeah. Honestly, I think the true answer is probably trial and error, right? Like, we get out there, we talk to these organizations face to face. It’s not just phone calls and emails. I can’t stand email. I’m one of those people. So I’d much rather sit down, have coffee, go in person, see what it’s like—what is the actual mission here? What are you guys accomplishing? What are you trying to accomplish? And even at the HUD level, it’s much easier to have a relationship with

social workers and even the inspectors to understand, “What are you looking for? What are you trying to see and prevent or whatever?” versus just a PDF handout that they give to everybody and you’re living off of. And so I look for that personal relationship in the sense of, “What is it that you need from us? And then how can I help you get there?” And so, we’re pretty straightforward as far as: We have apartments,

we’re trying to fill those apartments, but you have needs as well. What are those needs so I can make sure when I—when we renovate or when we get everything together, that it’s the easiest process for you, which helps both of us? But I find that those actual connections—going, sitting down, meeting with them in person—and that’s any city that we’re in. If we’re looking at an apartment in Cincinnati or in Indianapolis, we start to get involved with the organizations before we close on the property,

so that it’s not a chasing game. And as you’re building those out, obviously you’re getting more exposure to how those operate. And every major market is kind of different in how they like to handle those. So without being in person and getting involved and actually seeing what it’s like, I found that living off those spreadsheets or PDFs or just the emails, it’s tough to build that kind of camaraderie, is probably the better word to say.

Joseph Crooms (13:05)

Chris, what size—

what size apartments do you—do they vary? One-bedroom, two-bedroom, studios, can you fill me in on that?

Chris Wise (13:12)

It’s like forty-six percent one-bed, one-bath. The rest are two-bed, two-bath. Every now and then, one that we’re working on has three-bed, one-bath, but for the—that’s three units, so that doesn’t move the needle very much. But primarily those one-beds and two-beds.

Joseph Crooms (13:26)

Gotcha. So my second question is, what’s been the key to keeping your business running smoothly?

Chris Wise (13:33)

I’d say smooth is pretty subjective, right? It’s a lot of working with the team, trusting the team. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve worked in various industries. I own companies in various industries that have employees, and I’ve scaled in multiple states. So I’ve had that experience over time and learning really how do you manage in different states and different environments and how do you enforce the policies that you build.

But I think ultimately at the end of the day, smooth comes from—there’s an old saying: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” That’s a real point to consider, because I think for us, it is not, “Hey, you raise the money, jump into nine properties right now because you have the money and the investors are ready.” It has to be meticulous. You have to have a plan behind it. And just jumping into things quickly doesn’t make any sense for us.

And so it’s trusting the team. It’s trusting somebody to stand up and be confident enough to stand up and say, “This doesn’t make sense to me,” or “I’m not really sure if I agree with this,” and then talking it out and having that real kind of trust environment. I depend almost entirely on my team. And so while I can—I have decent inputs and I can push the conversation one way or the other, trusting the team that has done this—30 years of experience in

whether it be property management or raising capital or whatever it may be—that’s real experience. And so sitting back and letting them have their say and truly taking in what they—what they’re suggesting versus just pretending like I know everything. I think that’s tough for a lot of owner-operators, is to remember that you don’t have all the answers. So step back, see, rely on your team, but have that team in place and be able to trust them. And that

goes away quick if something happens. So we—we’ve been fortunate that most of my team has worked with me for the last four years plus, and so we built that over the years.

Joseph Crooms (15:17)

So Chris, I’m going to deviate a little bit from the script. You have four businesses. Which one business do you enjoy the most?

Chris Wise (15:24)

I have five, actually. But I’ll tell—it’s—I love all my businesses. I think that what I enjoy the most has to do with the project I’m working on at the time, right? So I—I love the relationship-building side. I love dealing with very complex problems, that isn’t just a quick

solution that we just hope works, and if not, we adjust. And so, I find that—one of the things I have is a holding company, and that oversees all my other companies. Those meetings and going through the actual numbers, understanding what is the cost of acquisition, the payback period, what are we getting on our return on ad spend, and what are we getting from the investor level, the tenant level—

those metrics and making sure that we’re on track, but we’re also implementing what we talk about—that’s what I love. I love being able to sit down and say, “We said we were going to do this. This is how we executed and this is what happened,” and have a direct line that we can have that conversation. The best part is it’s never a straight line, right? And so the greatest thing is, “Hey, this is how we implemented and executed. This happened. We weren’t expecting that. It threw us off on this, in this metric, but

here’s how the adjustment went and this is how we ended up.” And that’s more bragging almost on your team and the execution style of it, because things are gonna happen. But yeah, it’s really tough to say I love one more than the other.

Joy of real estate is the social impact. And I think if you really take a look at this, people are going to you to have a place to live, and that—that’s a real thing. That’s their family, that’s the shelter over their head, over their kids. That’s a very important opportunity to have. That’s a very important task to have, right? And you kind of—a blessing to be given to have that opportunity to give back and to take real sense of it.

I—you—I just don’t think you can get that anywhere else. And real estate offers this fantastic opportunity where it’s not just numbers and money at the end of the day. You’re really giving a place—you’re giving somebody that protection and shelter that they need and their kids need, or the family needs, or parents might need. And if you’re involved in that way, you can actually see the real impact it has on them

beyond just the numbers—just a safe place to sit, cook dinner, have dinner with the family. I can’t get that kind of—that impact really in the legal world or SaaS, or this is where you get that. And it’s one of the things that I’m probably most passionate about, is being able to see and be a part of that, and have those conversations where genuinely they’re saying,

“Nobody would give me a chance because I dealt with these things in the past. And thank you for just giving me a chance.” And then having those conversations where somebody might have been homeless at one point, and now they’re actually in nursing school. What a jump, right? But being able to actually see that and be a part of it in a small way—like, she or this tenant had to do that herself, but to at least offer that little glimpse of hope that maybe led to her being able to execute on that—

phenomenal. I—I’ll never get that anywhere else.

Joseph Crooms (18:20)

First, Chris, let me say thank you on behalf of the vets, people, community that you may be helping. Thank you on their behalf. What’s your next scale?

Chris Wise (18:28)

Yeah, for us we’ll be—’27 will be the real opportunity that we look to close between six and eight properties that year. We’ll also exit from a few properties from there. We’re looking at scaling close to about the ninety-million-dollar range of assets held within—with current assets held. So quite a bit of purchasing going on in the next few years.

ForVue itself has scaled quite a bit in its own right as a predictive maintenance model, not only for property management and multifamily or short-term rentals, but it’s now scaled into commercial as well. So we’re looking at restaurants and hotels and things of that nature. So there’s quite a bit of interesting growth happening that’s not very common in the early stages, but we’re being very fortunate about those.

Joseph Crooms (19:14)

Understood. So Chris, unfortunately, man, 18 minutes goes by fast, yeah. But you’ve been very informative. And so let me ask you this: What’s been the biggest difference in building your relationship? What have you done that makes you unique?

Chris Wise (19:30)

I think it’s the experience. I spent six years in Naval Special Warfare as a SWCC, got out, went to law school, worked in various things, got various companies. I think that—I think that experience at that age, the discipline learned at a young age—I joined when I was 17—

I was fortunate that I not only—I was grown up enough to take on that, but also disciplined enough to hold on to it over the years, has really afforded me the opportunity to do what I’m doing today and scaling the different—in different industries and exiting different industries. You just don’t see that very often. And I don’t think that—one of the hardest things to get is the discipline, one of the hardest things to keep is the discipline. And so there’s things that

I do—it’s very rare. I talk to people—I’m up at four every morning. Doesn’t matter, I’m up at four. And typically we’re working and taking calls and doing things internally till ten or eleven. You just don’t see—I’ve been doing that for over ten years. And so you just—that kind of structure is rare, I find.

Joseph Crooms (20:28)

Chris, thank you, man. As a Navy veteran myself, I really appreciate you, bro. So listen, so you can’t fake these relationships. So let me wrap this up. If someone wants to get in touch with you, someone wants to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate, learn more, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way to reach you, Chris?

Chris Wise (21:31)

Best way to reach me is through the team. You can either go through LinkedIn or you can just email directly. Our email is wise@investwisecap.com. And our LinkedIn is Christopher Wise Capital. And so that goes straight to me. The team manages all of it, makes sure that we get to everybody that reaches out. We’re very good at that. Fortunately, knock on wood, that’ll be the bottleneck that I forced ourselves into now that I said it. But yeah, typically LinkedIn’s

very quick; also email, one of the easiest ways.

So email: wise—W-I-S-E—at investwisecap—I-N-V-E-S-T-W-I-S-E-C-A-P—dot com is the email. And then as far as the LinkedIn, it is Christopher-wise-capital. And if you just look up Wise Capital, it will also take you right to us. We’ve been fortunate in that regard as well. But those are the two easiest ways for us.

Joseph Crooms (22:21)

Perfect. Well listen, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective, your philosophy that’s been developed, and the discipline that you’ve kept. We need more people in spaces who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here, Chris Wise.

Chris Wise (22:35)

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Joseph Crooms (22:37)

Well, listen, for those of you tuning in, I know you got some value from this. Make sure you subscribe. We got more operators and conversations coming from operators, just like Mr. Chris Wise, who’s out there building real businesses, helping communities. And he’s just—he’s an all-around guy. So I feel you can trust him. Make sure you contact him. So we’ll see you on the next episode of Real Estate—Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast.

Today we had Chris Wise. Chris, tell everybody you’ll talk to them later.

Chris Wise (23:07)

Thank you. Thank you for having me.