News & Insights for RE LPs
Uncovering GP nonsense
Sharing insider information & rumors (with disclaimers)
Anon for safety's sake
Not Jake! Or anyone else!
Richard Fertig of Stomp Capital, an RE fund, the guy with the lavish lifestyle travelling the globe and launching 'experiential short-term properties' all over the country, is bilking investors and setting their money on fire.
Richard spoke at Moses Kagan's conference and has a
Chris Powers is drowning in debt & distancing himself from Fort. Huber wiped out most LP equity. Levi Benkert is capital called. Kagan's distributions are below what treasuries are paying. Fertig is diluting the sh*t out of his investors. John & Frank are laying low.
@realEstateTrent
If you gew up in the 80s and 90s in lower middle class you'd go to the store twice a year to get 10 shirts each time. You didn't get stuff during the school year though.
@alxberman
Why would you say 'you worked since 22'. Many haven't. Many studied until 28. Many took years off, were sick, were in prison or served in the military.
People have asked me why I set up this account.
There's a couple of reasons - to learn, to give back, to help
But this was the inflection point:
Moses Kagan said retwit was a community. To me that's a cynical grift. The moment I heard that comment, I knew LPs would be fleeced.
Just so we're clear:
If you've raised money on here for RE in the past 5 years we'll look into every one of you.
Where did the money go? Was there any wrongdoing? What mistakes did you make.
You can thank Moses Kagan for that.
I've been critical of Kagan for calling this place a community when he's selling a $6000 conference & promoting scammers.
I'm putting my money where my mouth is.
Real community, for FREE, in person.
Announcing the Free LP/GP 3-Day Hang
Venice, LA, CA; Sept 23 - 25, 2024
You
Alright, the 411, the down & dirty on
Strip Mall Guy / Real Estate Trent / Don Tepman
as an investor.
Remember friends, I care about the returns. I care about financial performance. I don't care if the guy is warm & fuzzy.
A lot of you have asked me about SMG - is he legit?
@melissasavenko
This is absolutely horrific land use that is leading to the climate crisis (we now use five times more energy per capita than Europeans), the mental health crisis (loneliness), and class and racial segregation.
Real estate Twitter circle-jerk 2021 when promoting each other's Sunbelt 3 cap POS syndications and funds
Real estate Twitter 2024 when asked about the returns they have generated for their LPs on those Sunbelt deals
@melissasavenko
@_ChicagoV_
In my area, not in California, all the good areas have 1950s 1200 sq fr homes. All the exburb subdivisions have McMansions and people move in there when they can’t afford the good areas with the tiny homes. A 1200 sq ft home costs 1.2M, a 3500 McMansion costs 650k.
Regarding this account:
We have documents.
There will be a website.
We’ll crowdfund and verify information.
It’s chaos now because things are moving so quickly, but everything will be organized and presented to the public.
If you have decks, OMs and investor updates LMK.
One of the big GPs scams is keeping the names of LPs confidential from other LPs
They say this is out of "respect for our LPs"
The truth is that it's a measure intended to thwart the coordination of LPs against sponsors
Makes class action lawsuits more difficult to coordinate.
@AndrewBeckUSA
He's the champ, you're the underdog so do a thread right now about the LP fabrics. Go DEEP like he does and prove to everybody he's wrong. I'm sure you have all the knowledge to debunk him so let's go. Do a 20-tweet thread about the knit and the threads and everything right now.
@MatznerJon
He's struggled with depressesion for decades. Had suicidal ideations and has basically set his life up to try and not die by his own hand for the past 30 years. I don't remember him ever being not sad. He's a survivor of his own darkness and that's been his brand, no?
This is what happens when you plan content in advance with a global team instead of reacting to the world around you in real time.
Your self storage sponsor pushing a vitamin D supplement is chef's kiss..
And then you found out he's a small time flipper.
And that's what got your panties in a bunch.
--
Don looks legit. He claims to produce 20%-22% IRR; he's publicly shared the numbers on many deals.
I think he's real.
He just said things that made you think he's a big shot.
From a reader:
"What happens now to the the MF (apartment) guys who did all of these cost seg studies? Are they screwed? Thinking if they give the deal back to bank they not only lose equity — they have to repay the depreciation they took?"
What are we thinking here?
Nick claims to own a portfolio of self-storage assets worth $145,000,000.
Bolt Storage distributed $3M in returns last year.
Bolt is at 67% occupancy (a very low number for the industry today would be 80%, most facilities are closer to 90%).
Bolt does not have a real CEO.
@danielchisca
The guy gave you an amazing opening to anchor the price and you replied with "what's your budget?"
You could have said "our floor is $50k, but if we don't sell quick we'll run a competitive bid, invest 2-3k in marketing, and command 80-90k".
@WilsonCompanies
For 99% of the searchers/eta buyers, they have a zero chance of building this company from scratch so for them replicating the business is impossible.
@alxberman
"claim disability" sounds condescending
the VA offers very little benefits so that disability payment subsidizes the loss of motor skills or other biology
My point is that the world is much more complicated and much more complex than "8k, not good"
Programming News:
We're going to have a really exciting day tomorrow.
Tune if. Maybe even push the notification bell.
Two big posts.
One in the SMG style.
Another a grenade.
Then on Friday we'll talk a lot about Stomp Capital / Richard Fertig.
That guy is a character👀👀👀
Because people are starting to freak out:
If you didn't take anyone else's money to invest in RE, you'll never be the object of my posts.
If you took money and your LPs love you, I'll sing your praises.
If you levered that sweet, sweet ZIRP debt to your eyeballs, you're it🎯.
@realEstateTrent
@BobKnakal
talks about what it was like in detail. You walked the streets to catalog buildings, you had lots of meetings face to face vs texts and emails, you sent messangers around town, you waited for a clerk from the mail room to come up, your secretary took dictation, you
Again, for those in the back.
In RE you cannot lose your LPs capital.
Ever.
Why?
Because the risk-adjusted returns are so low that your LPs will never come back from this loss (not totally, but from this investment).
8% + fees is 13-14 years of returns. This is NOT VC.
@sweatystartup
I'm open to discussing this with you and if you're willing to speak about the details of your deals and answer questions and help us all learn, I'm absolutely not saying no.
There are sponsors out there fighting for every dollar of their LPs' equity. Sacrificing nights & weekends & more to make sure their LPs don't lose money.
Nick Huber is not one of these sponsors.
He's busy doing a hundreds things. Dan is no longer CEO.
Who's minding the store?
I'm not Jake
I'm not the other accounts
I have no idea if Jake's the other accounts
What I do know is that Hiten has protected a lot of wrong-doers
He's known about a lot of guys taking advantage of retail & small timers here. At TRD, he promoted guys he knew were scammers.
That's the letdown.
What's rubbing you the wrong way is that your friend Tommy from school runs $10B AUM
and Don buys $6M-$10M of tertiary strip malls a year, holds them 3-5 years, and sells $10M-$15M worth of strip malls a year
while wearing tuxedos
Tommy wears cargo shorts.
Some of the many specific issues I have with Huber:
(read till the end for the big one)
- they paused distributions on some deals
- they know all of the equity will most likely be wiped out and they're not proactive about it
- saying this is worth a 6.5 is like my kids drawing
I want to be very clear:
If you open a business, anyone in the world can review you. Patrons, neighbors, people who work in the industry. It's all fair game.
When you're a RE investor running an IR (investor relations) fundraising process in public, we get to review you too.
@eduschesne1
“We’ll match any written offer you show us directly from the vendor assuming it’s for the same scope with the same level of experience and insurance.”
Two of Levi's LPs messaged me saying they are very happy with the deals, that he's really fighting for them, that he puts their interests before his and that he's great at communicating with LPs.
I'm very happy that positive information is coming to light as well.
One of the things I know you'd all like to see is who on social is promoting which GP.
Who's sponsoring whose podcast; what are they getting in exchange.
What are the real connections when the "my friend is really good at RE & trustworthy" tweet goes out.
Coming soon.
I'm very open to having Nick join us if we get to ask deep questions. Not 'gotcha' questions, but ones to really understand everything.
I'm grateful to Nick for reaching out and we'll discuss this and if it works for him and me, we'll see him in Venice the week of the 23rd of
@LPWhisperer
I’ll open up about our revenue, expenses, NOI and refinances. As well as how hard we’re working on management, capital protection, etc.
It is wild out there.
@justin_abrams1
Codie isn't real estate and to me she's JUST an info product salesperson so I don't care as much.
Yes, not much is true but I feel everyone knows that?
@ScottChoppin
I have a friend who's an amazing, warm soul. Very smart (Georgia Tech alumn), successful (north of 30mm liquid), retired (early 60s). Never married. No kids. 3 siblings all with kids. Best uncle in the world. Sees everyone all the time. Basically spends 50% of his time at home,
@PaulSkallas
You're saying American is less scammy than Naples?
We pay $20 a plate for reheated poison. We have to drive 3 miles to get burnt coffee for $5. We get cancer from most evertying.
Naples is radically more civilized.
@moseskagan
Might not be practical, but this is why in the military and in the oil field and other industrial environments you have to back in to your parking space. It radically reduces the number of accidents when you pull out.
Fleecing people by offering high risk, but low risk-adjusted returns to flip a building is not "being in the arena" and exploiting the tragic death of a great guy let down by people on here who he begged for help is absolute scumbag behavior.
GTFOH.
Accounts like this are zeroes.
Guys posting about their PG’d deals with their IRL name are in the arena. It doesn’t always work out. Only 6 months ago a mutual re dev killed himself due to biz challenges. Win or you’re bankrupt and your family is poor. Tough game.
Also, there
A lot of you are standing up for folks mentioned in my tweet, saying they're nice guys or that you've done business with them.
Not one of you, if I remember correctly, has said that these guys are generating absolute killer-risk adjusted returns for you. That they're amazing
Chris Powers is drowning in debt & distancing himself from Fort. Huber wiped out most LP equity. Levi Benkert is capital called. Kagan's distributions are below what treasuries are paying. Fertig is diluting the sh*t out of his investors. John & Frank are laying low.
It's Make Huber An Offer For Bolt Storage's Portfolio Day
We heard that Nick Huber values Bolt Storage's real estate portfolio at a 6.5 cap.
We heard people say that at an 8, equity would be wiped out.
We heard people say that today it would probably trade at an 11 and wesaw
In 2023 Huber distributed $3M on a portfolio with a basis of $105M that Nick claims is worth $145M.
People say that's 7% on equity (~$45M) but equity has almost no risk. $105M Is $60M of risk.
Lless than 3% distributed on a ton of risky (maturing within 24 months) debt.
Retwit GPs who were asked to disclose their deal performance and audited financials for months are now attacking me and a number of other pro-disclosure accounts
… instead of you know, disclosing individual deal performance and publishing audited financials.
In December 2023 Nick had $7M cash-on-hand. He has $4.5M in cash now.
Did Bolt lend money to anyone? Or did it blow through $2.5M in cash?
Also, May is the best month in SS. Annualizing based on May numbers is ridiculous.
Nick provided a breakdown of his financials last night. A few takeaways:
- NOI is only $6.8mm
- NOI in Dec was $9.3mm
This is terrible. He’s also using annualized figures for May and not TTM,which is likely worse.
67% occupancy is horrible when comps are at 90%!
In December 2023 Nick Huber's Bolt Storage had an occupancy rate of 65%.
If you know anything about the self storage asset class, you know this is EXTREMELY LOW.
Bobby Fijan, the floorplan guy, is a total scammer.
Affinity. Misrepresenting his accomplishments. Misrepresenting his skills.
He is not who he says he is.
Regarding these GP rumors:
Documents. Receipts. Quotes. Sources.
All of that is coming.
And then it’s on you dear LP or Twitter audience member to vet these guys.
It’s clear many of you have never done that so now using my data points you can get after it.
Who wants my take on SMG as a RE investor?
A lot of you have asked me if he's legit because Don has an air about him ;) and he's quick to block.
20 likes and I'll post.
Things don't happen in a vacuum.
We know Nick is not a real estate guy. Not an operator. Not a serious investor.
But these two are worse. His enablers. Powers started in RE 20 years ago. Kagan is Yale & LSE educated with 15 years in RE.
They knew he's a scammer & enabled him.
At the end of the day Huber will either distribute what he told his LPs he would distribute at the time he said he would
or he won't.
This is binary.
Either he does it or he doesn't.
If he does he's a winner, if he doesn't he's a loser.
Nothing in between. That's the gig.
If you tell someone you're going to do something for them and you don't do it, you're a scammer and a grifter.
We can all agree to that.
So why is "I'll distribute 7% each year" and actually distributing 3% each met with endless excuses.
Either deliver, or you're a grifter.
Chris Powers is drowning in debt & distancing himself from Fort. Huber wiped out most LP equity. Levi Benkert is capital called. Kagan's distributions are below what treasuries are paying. Fertig is diluting the sh*t out of his investors. John & Frank are laying low.
I now have a follower who's a convicted felon (large scale GFC mortgage fraud) who changed his name and has been trying to build a network on here without disclosing his past.
Good times.
No one has been attacked. Let's not be snowflakes.
GPs are not disclosing financials.
This is "the cocktail party of the Internet," we get to talk about it.
If you attach your name, these guys WILL sue you, paying for it with LP funds.
You'll win but it'll be a nightmare.
If you're going to attack someone's character or business, you should do it with your name attached.
Not through an anon account.
I feel the same way about anonymous quotes in the press, which journalists can easily abuse.
And that's what's hard to compute - the contrast between making a million or two a year over 20 years
Being a worker. A grinder.
and the blocking and referring to the billionaires and the tuxedos and the gala and the "this app is so crazy"
You just didn't expect him to do very small deals the size of a nice but small house in Redwood City ($4M).
With all that talk of billionaire investors and the people he talks to and meets with and the brashness
you thought he was doing $50M deals. At least. $100M a year.
Respect to Nick.
We'll discuss this and see if it works for the both of us.
This was my reply:
"I'm open to discussing this with you and if you're willing to speak about the details of your deals and answer questions and help us all learn, I'm absolutely not saying no."
While Huber is galavanting around golf courses in a PJ and doing affiliate marketing, his storage customers are getting rained on and overheated in their units.
So happy that Kagan and Powers let us know about him and promoted him fundraising on their considerable platforms.
@PetitRetard
In December 2023 Nick had $7M cash-on-hand. He has $4.5M in cash now. Did Bolt lend money to anyone? Or did it blow through $2.5M in cash? Also, May is the best month in SS. Annualizing based on May numbers is ridiculous.
Getting messages from LPs. A few said they are underperforming horribly compared to pro forma numbers. Another sent an offering document. 50/50 promote.
HUBER IS A FEE MACHINE!
One of the great things about the past few days on retwit is that people finally feel empowered to say all the things they've held inside for years about retwit GPs.
They feel they finally have some air cover and they're coming forward in droves. 700 DMs detailing violations of
The most DMs I've gotten about wrongdoing are about Richard Fertig / Stomp Capital.
More than 3 dozen now.
I hope to have that information out today, although might be another day as there's a lot more than I expected.
Nick Huber is actively raising money for 'class-B industrial investments'
while maintaining a 65% occupancy rate on his current portfolio of absolutely crap (don't believe me, go to Bolt Storage com > Locations > look at the pictures of the facilities) self storage facilities.
Why are you listening to an affiliate marketer who:
- has not accounted for the tens of millions of dollars he's raised on X
- no longer has a full-time CEO for Bolt Storage
- is involved in a dozen businesses; focused on none
how to raise your children?
Don blocks. He's exclusive.
He lives on the Upper East Side. His family lives in California.
He put on something he calls a Gala.
He's friends with a guy who sold $22,000,000,000 (yes, that's billions) of dollars worth of Manhattan commercial property.
@jchal
Memphis is much bigger than Atlanta. It's only a tiny bit smaller than Nashville. Amazing history and culture and much more reasonable cost of living than in most places. Not thinking about Memphis is a mistake.
A serious post:
This is directed to everyone, but will be especially useful for the investors with less experience.
When thinking about sponsor opportunities think about it this way:
The best institutional investors in the country would KILL their own mothers
1/3
If you're a real estate sponsor who raised money on here & now you're
distancing yourself from the RE investment business you've raised for
because it's not going well
I'm going to write about you doing so; that'll live on the internet forever.
Have a backbone. Be accountable
What some RE folks keep forgetting
Most POS 'real estate assets' don't trade
They only traded because of the pandemic frenzy
No one wanted them for the past 20 years
Saying you're going to sell a tertiary industrial park or storage facility is wishfully thinking, not reality.
That's the setup,
a big, wonderful, grand world.
And then you get to the climax, waiting for the resolution
and you learn that Don had done a couple dozen deals over 20 years, each worth a couple million. $5M or $7M tops.
Let's say $4M as he recently referred to this #.
This is why I'm not going public.
I write openly and I'm not spending the next couple of years getting sued.
It still may come of course, but never make it easier for the assholes out there. Make them work for it.
(Aleksey saying he has to hold back for fear of lawsuits)