Working in healthcare is very much a team sport. Throughout a shift as a nurse, you are in constant communication with your charge nurse and nursing assistant. You make calls to the pharmacy, lab, respiratory team and anyone else that needs to be involved in your patient’s care. As the RN, you serve as the main point of contact for the patient — the team captain. You coordinate all aspects of their care for the entire shift. This is a big job, especially when your patient is very, very sick. There are situations where you may be required to call in a team of ten people to help you care for a patient that’s declining. You need to know all of the resources available to you at all times.
You need to know exactly who you need to call when specific problems arise. If your patient is struggling to breathe, you need to call respiratory therapy and order a breathing treatment. If your patient is spiking a fever and looking septic, you need to call rapid response and draw STAT labs. If your patient is throwing up uncontrollably from a small bowel obstruction, then you need to call the doctor and get an order for an NG tube.
That command of communication lines, resources and specialized teams is very similar to what an operator of multifamily real estate deals need to succeed. In real estate, it’s also a team sport. Problems will arise and you need to know who to call to help you solve these problems, and most of the time, it needs to be done in a very timely manner. If your lender is requiring specific insurance, you need to call your insurance company to make sure they can meet the criteria. If the seller is providing convoluted financials, you need to reach out to your broker to help you sort this out, otherwise it can delay the loan. If one of your investors has questions about the business plan, you need to get back to them in a timely manner or they may lose trust in you and pull out of the deal.
There is a lot of operational decision-making and communication efforts that go into managing a syndication deal. The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone. In healthcare, you have the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, etc. And in real estate, you have brokers, lenders, contractors, attorneys and CPAs.
As the operator of a deal, in this team sport, it is your responsibility to coordinate all aspects of the syndication — the due diligence, the capital raise, the funding. You rely on certain team members to execute certain parts of the deal. Just as a nurse coordinates all care for the patient throughout a hospitalization, a syndication operator coordinates all aspects of the syndication. Both a nurse and an operator function as a team captain — a responsible leader for the team.
Who do you want as your team captain for your next real estate deal?
