Why Military Base Housing Is the Next Big Real Estate Investment Opportunity

Cody Barker (00:00)

Definitely the lending side. ⁓ Going through this, a lot of banks, they have those certain boxes that they want checked. And when it’s a special kind of a project, even though it’s extremely profitable and there’s very low risk involved, we have all the data that says, the base has this many people that need housing and this many and like everything is lined up. Okay

John Rogers (00:02)

Exactly.

Cody Barker (00:26)

guaranteed to work and then because it doesn’t fit certain boxes going through so many different lenders and Trying to figure out and then each lender wants you to rewrite it something a little bit differently Everybody say ⁓

Yeah, it sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, we can’t do it. it gets a little frustrating sometimes when you’re you’re dealing with that you’re like, well, if you love it so much and you see that it’s gonna work and nobody can find anything wrong with the deal, okay, let’s do it.

Luckily we have found lenders now, but it was been it’s been a major process,

Michelle Kesil (02:32)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by John Rogers and Cody Barker. John is a commercial general contractor and a multifamily asset acquisition operator, and Cody is the underwriter of their team. So, excited to have both of you on the show today.

Cody Barker (02:45)

you

John Rogers (02:56)

Fantastic. Thank you for having us.

Michelle Kesil (02:59)

Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. So let’s dive in. For those not familiar with your world, can you share the short version of what the main focus of your business is?

Cody Barker (02:59)

Yeah, very nice.

Well, we pivoted a little bit. When we started, we were really looking at multifamily assets and then going through and seeing the competition in that area to find the profitability that we were looking for. We kind of looked into our own team to see what strengths that we had. And with John here, he’s an amazing contractor. He’s been doing this for over 40 years with construction. So we started looking at what we could possibly use his strengths and getting into maybe ground up builds.

or more extensive remodels or even potentially conversions. And we went a whole different direction from our original multifamily idea. And now we’re actually building and converting properties for military lodging.

John Rogers (03:57)

Exactly. Typically we’re looking at the assets in the hospitality class. So anything with a heavy lift, uh your general contractor is on board here, myself. And we’ve got a crew of 20 to 25 guys that travel across the country. They’re kind of jacks of all masters of none. So right now they’re in Oklahoma, right outside Altus Air Force Base.

Michelle Kesil (03:58)

Awesome.

Why did you guys decide on the military division?

Cody Barker (05:19)

It was really almost by accident when we were looking at doing potential conversions. John found this property in Oklahoma, which was not a market that we were really even looking in. But with just some basic background and talking to the city over there, we started seeing that they had a real need. They had a housing shortage and working to see if there was a way we could help them solve that problem.

We found out what the military issue was that they were having with their housing needs, which was also kind of hand in hand causing an issue with what they were experiencing in Altus. So we figured out a way that we could get in there and kind of help both sides, help the military and the city. And that’s really what led us in. It wasn’t completely intentional to start with.

Michelle Kesil (06:00)

Amazing. What have you seen be a potential upside of this specific niche in your business?

Cody Barker (06:09)

Definitely the returns, I would say, are very good because we’re able to work with the military and by them staying with us, not having, they get paid per diem and so they’re not having to spend more than their per diem like they would at other hotels. We can get exactly the per diem amount. So it’s not costing the military any extra, but that nightly rate that extrapolates out over months,

is much higher than just what a normal apartment rental rate would be. So there’s a lot of cash flow in projects like this. And what’s great, because we do work with investors. So like on this project, for example, we have a 506B and we have investors on this project. And really, they’re going to be seeing their return all in cash on cash, as opposed to having to wait for the asset to appreciate in value before they can really see a decent return. So that’s one of the huge advantages that

that we loved about this project once we started into the pro forma and seeing what these returns would be, ⁓ it’s really incredible.

Michelle Kesil (07:11)

Amazing. That’s very interesting.

John Rogers (07:13)

We got a handful more coming up. If there’s any interest to some of your investors, just reach out to ourselves. Our email is john @ investhyc.com. That’s hotelyankycharlie.com. we’ve got cody @ investhyc.com. And then our cap raiser, third partner, Mark, he’s not here today. Maybe on the next one we can bring him in, is mark @ investhyc.com.

Michelle Kesil (07:13)

What are… Go ahead.

Awesome, thank you for sharing that. So what are some of the goals for where your business is heading or the direction you want to take it in?

Cody Barker (07:49)

I think with this niche that we found here, we’ve been to, we’ve spoken to a lot of other military bases and it seems like there’s a need for what we’re doing in this city and in this, for this base. And I think that there’s going to be a lot more that we can do with this. So I’d really like to grow this niche that we’re in and, and work with a lot more bases and see what we can do to, to help as many as possible. And.

What I’ve seen is a lot of the smaller towns where they don’t have a lot of other options where people can stay is where they could probably use this the most. So we’re really going in. This is sort of our proof of concept with this one. So when we have that and we’re able to show other bases what we’re doing and also show other investors what we’ve done with this one, then I think that there’s going to be a lot of support for it and we should be able to grow it pretty quickly.

John Rogers (09:15)

Exactly. I think the military or the Air Force has an RFP out on the street right now. It’s called COBL C-O-B-L. It’s commercial on-base lodging. Basically, there’s 23 bases across the country they’ve identified that need to have commercial grade assets built on or adjacent to their base. So with the Air Force, there’s plenty of demand for that stuff as well. So Air Force, Navy, we’re working on a Navy project in Florida right now and then an Army project in Kansas.

Michelle Kesil (09:15)

Awesome.

Cody Barker (09:44)

Yeah, and the military in general is looking to privatize base housing as well as their lodging. So right now it’s kind of the perfect time for what we’re trying to do.

John Rogers (09:54)

And who better to make the rent than, you know, the US government? As long as Uncle Stamps stays solvent, we’re collecting rent. We’re good.

Awesome, those tax dollars back.

Michelle Kesil (10:02)

Yeah, absolutely. So tell me more about the multifamily um aspect of your business. How does that correlate with everything that you’re doing?

Cody Barker (10:13)

Well that’s what we originally started in. So when we started High Yield Capital as the three partners, myself, John and Mark, and we were really looking at multi-family assets, stuff that’s over 100 units. We were looking at secondary markets and class A, class B properties, even class Cs potentially. And going through and looking for those properties, I mean that’s where, I think I was just explaining it right,

how we kind of switched over once we started not seeing that there’s as much profitability as we originally thought in a lot of those spaces.

John Rogers (10:49)

Right, you’re kind of depending on the asset appreciation and then exiting that you know deal with you know trying to match up to the numbers that you’d hoped for on the projections.

Michelle Kesil (10:58)

Yeah, amazing. So, go ahead

John Rogers (11:00)

where this idea of where we’re

at now is just a straight cash play.

Michelle Kesil (11:04)

Yeah, so what have been some of the obstacles that you have found through this new venture?

Cody Barker (11:11)

Definitely the lending side. ⁓ Going through this, a lot of banks, they have those certain boxes that they want checked. And when it’s a special kind of a project, even though it’s extremely profitable and there’s very low risk involved, we have all the back, we’re able to show on paper all the data that says, the base has this many people that need housing and this many and like everything is lined up. Okay

John Rogers (11:13)

Exactly.

Cody Barker (11:38)

guaranteed to work and then because it doesn’t fit certain boxes going through so many different lenders and Trying to figure out and then each lender wants you to rewrite it something a little bit differently Everybody wants their package a little bit different and go into that process over and over again That’s probably been the the biggest the biggest issue that we found because investors haven’t been a problem I mean people see it and they’re on board it they see the picture and we even hear back from the lenders they say

Yeah, it sounds like a great idea. I could really see this working. Unfortunately, we can’t do it. You know, ⁓ that’s amazing. That’s better than anything we’ve seen this quarter or this year. unfortunately, we can’t do it though. You know, so it’s, and then we’ve, yeah, it gets a little frustrating sometimes when you’re you’re dealing with that you’re like, well, if you love it so much and you see that it’s gonna work and nobody can find anything wrong with the deal, okay, let’s do it. and

Luckily we have found lenders now, but it was been it’s been a major process,

definitely.

John Rogers (13:20)

Exactly. Yeah, it’s um the other lender that we found. It’s a bank out of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. It’s a USDA loan. And we were getting closing to close here, I don’t know, a few weeks ago, and then the government shut down. So the real estate arm of USDA was shut down as well. So we didn’t sit around, you know, took the bull by the…

Cody Barker (13:40)

Yeah, that loan was ready to close. They were ready to close

and we should have been funded on that one. And then all of a sudden, if the government would have waited one more week to shut down, then we would have had our funding on to finish up this project. And then now we’ve been forced to go back and talk to some of the other lenders and make a few new contacts. So we have a lot of interest right now and it should be no problem. but yeah, it’s one of those things on the long list.

John Rogers (14:08)

Good challenge.

Cody Barker (14:10)

It’s like, okay, we’re all the way at the finish

John Rogers (14:11)

Good challenge.

Cody Barker (14:12)

line and then something happens. And so we’ve definitely been going through it on that aspect of it. Everything else has gone super smooth. Everything else has been absolutely perfect. So much cooperation with the city, so much cooperation with the Air Force. I mean, great people to work with. We’ve got to know these people really well and really got a real intimate knowledge of what’s going on in the city and with the military. And all of that’s been great. Investors have been great. I mean,

Helping us, we’ve got letters from from the military base and letters from the city and everybody’s like, yeah, we love this. Let’s let’s do it. Everyone’s so excited about it. So it’s so smooth. Everything’s perfect, except for just that one that one issue and getting the right the right bank on board.

John Rogers (14:55)

Exactly.

Cody Barker (14:56)

That’s

really been the only struggle, I think. Everything else has gone super smooth. I mean, we have a great team. We’ve got you know great attorneys and accountants. And we have all complementing strengths between myself and John and Mark. We work really, really well together. And we all bring a lot to the table, different backgrounds, all three of us. And all of it’s gone really great.

As soon as we get this one final, this one little final piece to the puzzle completely done, then uh then we’re there. If the government opens up tomorrow, then hey, then next week we’ll have our funding. So, we’ll see.

John Rogers (15:25)

We’re good. We’re

ordering a bunch of materials and FF &E items and we’re off to the races.

Michelle Kesil (15:30)

Awesome. So what does the process look like for you guys in terms of working with the military? Is there like what is kind of like the action steps that you guys need to take?

Cody Barker (15:43)

It’s definitely a relationship type of a business. You need to go in, I mean, when we started, yeah, I have a military background, but I don’t know anybody at these different bases. And so getting in there and talking to people who’ve already been working with certain people and then getting a certain comfort level, because they don’t know us either. So building up that confidence and that comfort level and showing like, yeah, we are here, showing them what we’re actually building and the assets that we’re putting.

I mean the amenities that we’re putting into this asset that are built specifically for them and how much thought that we’ve put in to figure out exactly what the right amenities are that these guys are really going to want that’s going to make them have the best living experience possible while they’re going through their training and kind of building that trust and showing them, this is what we’re doing for you guys. Well, it’s I think that’s great. And what’s really going to boost us is once this one’s done.

And then we can show that and we can show, look, this is what we’ve done here in Altus. And this is what we’re going to do here. This is what we can do at your base. You kind of let us know what you need and we’ll custom tailor our product to fit what you guys need to make sure that we’re taking care of our military personnel. Whether that’s a ground up build, whether there’s something in town that we can, we kind of, with this one in Altus, we kind of got really lucky. It’s this hotel is this really large, ⁓

It used to be a Radisson and so it’s got these big conference halls, a bar and a restaurant, this big indoor atrium with the indoor pool and just tons and tons of space, a huge building. So we were really able to customize it on the inside how how we want to completely redo the whole thing and put these amenities in there. So it might be difficult to find something like that, but in other locations. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t build something from scratch or take something and take a different approach depending on what.

that particular base needs and what we might be able to help with. mean, John’s fantastic, he can build anything. So you know, we got a lot of options there with that, a lot of freedom there. And we don’t have to worry about subcontracting. He has his traveling crew that goes out so we can we can bring the entire construction crew to each of these projects and knock it out of the park.

John Rogers (17:41)

Thank

And that’s one real benefit as well that we’re not at the mercy of the local subcontract community you know in overpaying for various services and whatnot that we actually self-perform quite a bit of it. And we actually control the quality of what we do as well.

Michelle Kesil (18:07)

Yeah, amazing. That’s important. I feel like talking to many investors, the contracting work can sometimes be a challenge.

John Rogers (18:16)

Oh yeah, especially nowadays, everybody’s crying about prices of, you know, getting things done has gone through the roof and material prices rightfully so have gone up through the roof. But we enjoy national accounts with foundation materials, Home Depot, a lot of the other 800 pound gorillas in the retail market as well. So we get favorable pricing when we do go out to price materials.

Michelle Kesil (18:39)

Awesome are you doing contracting work for other types of investment buildings or just sticking to the military projects right now?

John Rogers (18:51)

Right now, uh we’re sticking with the military aspect. You know we see a big demand for it. Cody’s been through it. I’ve seen it. I’ve built some of the BEQs and BOQs as well. And they’re getting older, getting tired, you know troop morale is not the best when you have to stay in an overcrowded bunkhouse. So if we could help out our servicemen and women, that would be fantastic.

And my co-worker says we’re collecting for the government. know, the GSA pays the rent. You know, beat that.

Michelle Kesil (19:20)

It make sense

When it comes to growing your business, has there been anything in particular that has made the biggest difference for you?

Cody Barker (19:32)

think having our partner Mark on board and his connections to a lot of wealthy people has helped us have a real easy time accessing the capital that we need that’s going to help us grow quickly. we’ve got from going through this one, we have a lot deeper knowledge now of what it is to do these types of projects.

and the whole underwriting side of it, because the underwriting is quite a bit different. You’re looking at different things as opposed to just a normal multifamily. So now that we have the experience of working on doing this one, and then with John with his construction and with Mark being able to bring capital to the table, I think that we got a really great ability to grow this quickly.

John Rogers (20:11)

There you go. What’s it called? 10,000 doors? There you go.

Cody Barker (20:14)

10,000 doors is the goal.

Michelle Kesil (20:16)

Amazing. What an exciting call.

Cody Barker (20:17)

So this

property is 134. So we got a ways to go.

Michelle Kesil (20:24)

Yeah, that’s exciting.

John Rogers (20:24)

1%,

a little over 1%, 1.34%.

Michelle Kesil (20:28)

You

Awesome. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about everything you guys are doing. Where can people find you?

Cody Barker (20:40)

Definitely the email and this project if you want to know more on this one, too We have an investor portal. That’s investhyc.investnext.com and then you can just go in there and You’ll see the projects called Skyward Point and then we can you anybody’s welcome to go in there and take a look you just have to put in your name and your phone number and then and your email then you can go in check it out and Any questions let us know and we can set up

We’re happy to set up group meetings or individual meetings or talk more about it, any aspect of it really. So we’re pretty open. I think it’s a big market. So you know maybe other people find it interesting as well. And then they can connect with us because there’s always that chance too. Maybe they know of something that’s going on with a base in their area and then they can bring us in and help get that deal knocked out. So we can definitely help with that, especially with what we’ve done with this one.

So we can bring that experience to the table and help close that deal quicker, I think.

Michelle Kesil (21:42)

Yeah, amazing.

John Rogers (21:43)

and serve.

Michelle Kesil (21:44)

I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. Thank you guys for being here.

John Rogers (21:48)

Thank you so much. appreciate the opportunity so much. Thank you.

Cody Barker (21:51)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much.

Michelle Kesil (21:53)

Of course and for the listeners tuning in, you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like John and Cody who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on our next episode.