The Biggest Multifamily Red Flag with Christy Schnurle

The operators who claim nothing ever went wrong are usually the ones investors should fear most.

Most new multifamily investors spend years chasing the wrong role, the wrong deals, or the wrong partners before realizing what actually fits their skill set. This conversation breaks down what experienced investors look for before committing capital — and why conservative decisions are winning in today’s market.

If you want to go beyond podcasts and start building alongside serious multifamily investors, join the Tribe of Titans community. That’s where we work through real deals, capital raising, underwriting, and operator questions together in real time.

What You’ll Learn

•  The mindset shift that changed Christy’s path in multifamily 
•  Why some experienced operators still fail investor screening 
•  The overlooked risk most passive investors never consider 
•  What current market conditions are revealing about sponsors 
•  How new investors can avoid shiny object syndrome 
•  Why stabilized assets are attracting conservative capital 

About the Guest

Christy Schnurle is a multifamily real estate professional with more than 18 years of experience in acquisitions, fund management, cost reduction, and investor education. She leads business development at CDK Enterprises, where the firm has helped developers reduce construction costs across 60+ multifamily projects. She also serves as Co-Founder and President of Opal Equity, focusing on institutional-quality multifamily syndications and fund-of-funds strategies for passive investors and capital raisers. 

Learn more about her at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christyschnurle/ or https://www.youtube.com/@christy.schnurle or https://www.theopalfund.com/ 

About the Host

Brian Briscoe is an apartment operator and founder of Streamline Capital, focused on acquiring and operating multifamily properties in the greater Salt Lake City metro. He hosts the Diary of an Apartment Investor podcast, where he shares real-world operator insights and decision frameworks for aspiring multifamily investors.

If this conversation resonated, there’s more happening inside the Tribe of Titans. It’s where serious investors move beyond surface-level content and into real discussions that drive action. Visit https://www.thetribeoftitans.com/ to learn more.

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Transcript

Show Mission And Setup

Brian Briscoe 0:05

Welcome to the Diary of an Apartment Investor Podcast, the show where we cut through the noise and talk about what it actually takes to build a real multifamily investing business. I'm Brian Briscoe, apartment investor, operator, and founder of Streamline Capital. And this podcast is built for the aspiring apartment investor who wants more than just theory. We talk about raising capital, closing deals, managing assets, and making the decisions that separate dabbling from building something that lasts. Now, if you're serious about taking the next step, this conversation continues inside of the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community, where investors work through real deals together with live discussions and direct support. So let's get into today's episode.

Meet Christy And Her Path

Brian Briscoe 0:47

Welcome to the Diary of an Apartment Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe with Streamline Capital. Very excited for today's show. We have none other than Christy Schnurl with us today. So, Christy, welcome to the show.

Christy Schnurle 0:59

Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to be on the show today. Really looking forward to it.

Brian Briscoe 1:05

Absolutely. Let's start out by talking about you. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what you've been doing and how you got into real estate and multifamily.

Christy Schnurle 1:14

Sure. Yeah. So first, where I'm from, I'm been in California for most of my life. I currently live in Southern California. I've been in the multifamily real estate space for 18 years now. I went to school at UCR Vine, went to college there. And uh with a psych degree, I thought that I was going to go into, you know, private clinical practice. And instead, as I approached graduation, I had professors actually like discouraging me from doing that because they said it's just too tough of a business. So I was like, okay, now what am I going to do? Right. Yeah. So I had some friends at the time that were actually working for a syndication firm. And she was leaving her position and they needed someone to replace. So I came in and so I sort of accidentally fell into the real estate space in that way. So I spent five years with that company working at syndication. We focused just on tax credit properties during my time there. Well, that's all that they still do, but I was in acquisition, spent five years. So that's I learned due diligence, underwriting, negotiating partnership agreements, kind of all of that base foundation that I've carried forward. Did that for five years. And then I ended up, my father is in sort of more of the construction development space. And 25 years ago, he had started a firm. And shortly after I left the syndication firm, I started doing some side projects helping him out with his business and then have kind of full-time fallen in there for the last decade. So for that period of time, what I've been doing in that business is CDK Enterprises. And we help multifamily developers to reduce construction costs. We're looking at, you know, efficient design. What does it look like to reduce those construction costs and help people on the back end? So a lot of different things there.

Brian Briscoe 3:03

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Understand you have Opal Equity, which is your company as well.

Christy Schnurle 3:08

Yeah. So a couple of years ago, yeah, I partnered with that to do what we do there is we help investors to get into institutional grade multifamily opportunities. And that's kind of what our focus is right now. So helping people, it's for a lot of it, our investors are people who haven't really invested in this type of product before. Maybe they've been interested in real estate or interested in syndication, but feel a little overwhelmed or they're not sure about it. So we do a lot of education on the front end to help them to understand what the structure is, what it looks like, how

From Underwriting Fatigue To Clarity

Christy Schnurle 3:40

to evaluate different deals if they're right for them, that kind of a thing.

Brian Briscoe 3:43

Awesome. Awesome. Now, now a lot of people listening to this show, they're kind of taking their first steps into multifamily. Can you talk about, you know, why you decided to go that route? I mean, you're you're not operating, you know, you're helping investors find good operators, but can you talk about why you went that route and what you think the benefits are?

Christy Schnurle 4:00

Yeah. So it's interesting because I think I didn't specifically choose multifamily. It kind of shows me in the sense of, you know, right out of college, I kind of just followed this path, right? And I just sort of have been in this sector. However, I did think that I wanted to own and operate a handful of years ago. I started going down that route and I thought, okay, well, if I'm going to start to go in and go after some of these opportunities myself, what does that look like? And I immediately defaulted to, well, what's my skill set, right? And it came from acquisition. So I very much identified with that pillar and started underrating a lot of deals and kind of looking at them through that lens. And what happened after probably the 75th deal that I was looking at that didn't pencil it at all because this was maybe 2023 when like the gaps between everything were, you know, nothing really penciled, and you're probably better off for not having bought anything that year. So yeah, I don't think there was anything to buy that made any sense. But anyhow, the bigger realization at the time was that although I could do something, I had the skill set to underrate and to be looking at those deals in that way. I hated it. Like every time a new deal or opportunity crossed my desk, I was like, I don't want to sit and spend a couple of hours underrating this thing right now. And so for me, that kind of made me dig deeper of like, well, then what is it that I want to do? What am I excited about? And what is my path? Right. And I didn't even think about the fact that like you can get in, especially as a beginner. I think we're so primed to jump in and want to do our own thing, right? Like I want to, there's this big beautiful dream of like, I want to own an apartment building. And you don't realize quite how much goes behind that. And you really need strong partners around you that have done it before that know what they're doing, so that you're not jumping in without any experience. And the challenge I think that a lot of people have in the beginning is partnering with people who have enough experience to help you along that path. But most of the ones that have too much experience or a ton of experience, it's like they already have most of what they need to make each deal work, right? Like they don't need to take you on unless it's capital. So that's kind of how I ended up. I was like, you know what? I don't want to be underwriting these deals. I don't want to even necessarily go through and at this point jump in and have that be such a huge focus of owning and operating it myself. What I am excited about is the relationships, the people that I know in my network that are wanting to get into this. And for me to help them with that and to be able to be a part of deals I'm really excited about, like institutional grade with fantastic operators that have been doing this for a decade or whatever it is. And my path to do that was more of why don't I take my syndication background and do a fund of funds, like take what I understand about all of that and structure and go in that way.

Brian Briscoe 6:44

Perfect, perfect. A lot of good things there. And this comment's more for people listening. You know, if you're sitting at a spot and you you dread doing something, that's probably not where you belong, right? So, and the other point that I'll unpack from what Christy said is, you know, every operator will take money. You know, that that's one thing that almost every operator, you know, if you can come to an operator and say, hey, I can raise help you raise money, I can raise more money for you, you're gonna get a lot of yeses, you know, as opposed to people saying, I've already got that. But well, cool. So let's let's talk about, you know, that you you mentioned institutional deals. Can we go a little bit more deeper into the why? I mean, what what is an institutional type deal? You know, what type of operators are you looking for and partnering with?

Christy Schnurle 7:26

Yeah. So I guess when I'm saying that it's more of the the quality and the type of a project that has either already been operated by institutional money or ones that they'd be interested in investing in. And it's not that it has to be that, but it has a lot of qualities about it that we like, that we like to as, especially as a fund of funds, which maybe before I answer a question, I should back up really quick and kind of just tell people if they're not familiar what that

Fund Of Funds Explained Simply

Christy Schnurle 7:53

means. Good idea, yes. To give some good context into why we've chosen this. So a fund of funds is basically kind of like this subfund. So we as an independent company create a fund that then invests into an opportunity. So the way that we typically structure it would be like a syndication. So you have an operator who has their own fund that they've created to go take down apartment ABC. And so we would come in and bring investors into our fund, which then invests. So we essentially become one big check to the operator where our fund is sitting below them in the position that the rest of the passive investors are sitting in. So it's a nice structure for raising capital because it has a lot of compliance built in. You're able to bring capital in a way that uh works for you know the SEC and a lot of things like that. But I will say where a fund of funds is a risk is that because it sits in that LP spot and you're managing a fund and pulling investors and putting them into there, you as the fund manager don't have any control in the deal. So you're putting a ton of trust into that main operator and that they're gonna do what they said they're going to do. And at the end of the day, you can't even control if you're getting reports or not, right? Like you're very much a regular passive investor in that way.

Brian Briscoe 9:18

Yes. So your fund invest as an LP, typically, how do you get paid with a fund of funds?

Christy Schnurle 9:24

Yeah. So what we like to do, um, we're really passionate about not diluting investor returns. So what we do is we basically go in and we structure to where there's a spread between what someone who's investing directly into the operator's fund, what they would be getting as returns, and then what someone in our fund would be getting, and whatever that spread is in between is how we get paid. So we would get our fees. In like a standard syndication, you might have multiple share classes where it's like maybe you have share class A and B that are giving you a six percent pref, eight percent pref, you know, whatever it is. And then you have a C D that's like, okay, if you have a larger, if you have 500 million or a million dollar chat, you can buy these share classes. And they might mirror mirror the same one, but have additional benefits where it's like, okay, instead of a 6%, like this is an 8%. That's a just a simple straight example. But then the difference would be that 2%, right? And so that's where we would come in, and that would be paying our acquisition fee or an annual fund management fee, things like that.

Brian Briscoe 10:29

Got it, got it. Yeah, and that makes sense. And you know, we do different shares, uh different classes of funds on everything we do. And so exactly I said, so you're you're getting the benefits of the better class of shares, so to speak, and you're living off of the difference between what the investor would normally get and what you can get with that better class of shares.

Christy Schnurle 10:48

Correct.

Brian Briscoe 10:49

Well, awesome, awesome, awesome. So we explained fund of funds. Now, when you talk institutional, you're usually talking, you know, large properties, I assume, you know, very large properties. Do you like the A class, B class, you know, value add, stabilize? What type of deals do you really like to look for?

What Institutional-Grade Really Means

Christy Schnurle 11:05

What we've been looking for over the last couple of years is more of like that class B, maybe class B plus. Definitely stabilize some value add, but the value add being very, very light, especially in the market that we've been in. We're not looking for things right now where it's like we're depending on this full heavy renovation strategy to push rents up hundreds of dollars per unit, things like that, which there's nothing wrong with those plans, but they leave a lot of unknowns. So for us, at least for the investors we have right now and what we're looking at, we're okay with taking deals that are definitely not as exciting from a return standpoint in offering those because they're more stable. If they've been cash flowing consistently, they have a good track record. You have an operator coming in who's operated these types of assets for a long time. It's kind of rinse and repeat, they're taking over and they're kind of just tightening operations. So that's really the kind of play that we've been looking for for this market that very well likely will shift, you know, in the coming year and as things adjust. But right now, that's kind of been what attracts us to those kind of deals. So they're much larger, you know, where you're looking at 150, 250, 300 plus units, you know, larger, larger properties.

Brian Briscoe 12:18

Awesome. Now, do you have individual like markets or different metros that you like that you're focusing on right now? And why those markets?

Christy Schnurle 12:28

Yeah. So we're somewhat agnostic in the sense that because we're not owning and operating, we don't particularly care. And actually, we kind of prefer if they're not in the same market so that there's additional opportunities for investors. But I'm very conservative with what I look at. And I think part of that's probably going back to working for the syndication fund for five years. Our investors were all institutional as like the largest banks and insurance companies. And if you're underwriting for them, uh, you're gonna learn to be pretty. So I think it got kind of baked in my bones a little bit, the conservative. But so I stick to kind of just the market fundamentals, primary, you know, markets. We really don't explore, like maybe some secondary if it's strong enough, but like tertiary right now, there are some that are tempting, but it's just not, at least during this current kind of part of where we're at in the market, it's not something that we're considering.

Brian Briscoe 13:19

Yeah. So overall, you know, you've mentioned the word conservative, you're talking about the larger stuff. You're basically looking for things with a little bit less risk, a little bit less volatility for your investment philosophy.

Christy Schnurle 13:31

Correct. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe 13:32

Okay, got it, got it. For people listening, you know, there's a big difference between, you know, a C class value add when you look at the risk profile versus 300 unit B class that's you know more or less stabilized. You know, it's one of them has a lot of unknowns, one of them is very consistent. So, okay, cool, cool. So let's talk about challenges in the marketplace right now. What

Deal Criteria And Market Selection

Brian Briscoe 13:55

challenges do you have finding new good places to invest right now?

Christy Schnurle 13:59

Yeah, I would say right now it's just kind of I don't know, it's low transactions happening. You know, what we're doing is really kind of building relationships and identifying people more than we are the deals. Because right now there's not a lot that's happening with deals. So it's really about identifying who might be a good fit in terms of an operator that we want to keep a pulse on when they get an opportunity, then that's an opportunity for us to take a look at it and see if it might be a fit for our investors. So that's the biggest challenge would really be, at least from the opal equity, you know, from an investor standpoint side.

Brian Briscoe 14:35

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, are these types of operators receptive to you right now? Or are they just not making purchases? What are you seeing when you're reaching out to people?

Christy Schnurle 14:45

Yeah, I would say most are very receptive. Because to your point earlier, and I think that's something important for someone who's getting started to kind of realize is that capital really is one of the most powerful things. So it's like if you can gain the skill set or have partner with someone where it's like you're connecting investors with opportunities, it opens up a lot more doors and you can get in much more easily. Just make sure you're responsible with that role that you're taking on. But yeah, people are definitely receptive. It's more just like for us, if it's if it's the right opportunity, you know, or if we're comfortable enough with kind of with the operator. We've had conversations with some people that they might have been doing it for 15 years and they've been in the commercial space, but it may not be a fit for us because they've raised, you know, they've put most of their own funds in all those years, which is an incredible quality. And from a strictly from an investment standpoint, I admire it. And I would personally be like, yes, this is the kind of operator I want to invest in. Yeah. However, from a fund of funds, when your structure relies on the syndication structure of the parent fund, and you're mirroring that to some degree and trusting that they know how to do all that, and that's something brand new to them. That's where it's like for us, it's too much of a risk. So there's a lot of different things we're weighing when we're looking at something. So someone could be a fantastic operator, an expert in what they're doing, and still not be the fit for us right now in this company.

Brian Briscoe 16:09

That's something I never really thought about. So with the fund of funds, it works better with somebody who's actually syndicating instead of just plopping in their you know, millions or tens of millions of dollars.

Christy Schnurle 16:21

Absolutely. Yeah, because it's structured with a fund of funds, you're um operating under a 506C most of it. I you probably could do it under like a CF or something else. I don't know.

Brian Briscoe 16:32

I I've done a 506B fund of funds, but they're kind of awkward. But yes, mostly a 506C. Yes.

Christy Schnurle 16:40

Yeah, because the thing with the 506B is that like if you're doing a fund a 50, it has to mat, right? So if the parent one is a 506B, then the fund of funds is a 506B. But the people in the parent one still have to know every single person in the sub one because that's the nature of a 506B. So it's kind of like, well, then what's the advantage of pulling? It's like just pull everyone in or pull someone in as the GP, right? To bring that money. But yeah, yeah, exactly.

Brian Briscoe 17:10

So okay, got it, got

Vetting Operators And Red Flags

Brian Briscoe 17:12

it. Now, when when vetting operators, you talk about compatibility, but what are some red flags for you? You know, if if they say X, you know, it just kind of scares you away. And speaking of red flags, I'm wearing bright red right now. So we're talking about red flags in a bad way, not uh, you know, not the type of flags I'd wave at a football game. But yeah.

Christy Schnurle 17:31

So I think for me, some of the red flags are definitely like, like I said, one, I'm looking for track records. So it's like if someone has been doing this for about five years, just because of the nature of like where we're at in the market cycle, that doesn't tell me a lot. So I'm kind of like, I want to know that the person has exited. I want to know that they didn't just ride some golden wave through a good period of real estate. They were lucky with what they had and it performed well, right? Like I want to know that like if things aren't going well, or you can actually operate. So I'd say that's number one that we look through a lens. Like, how long have you been doing it? And like, what is that portfolio look like? How have past deals gone? I would say too in conversations, if we're asking, like, how tell me about a deal that didn't go as you expected, or the returns weren't there, and they're saying, Oh, we've never had that happen, or nothing bad. It's all been great. To me, that's a major rent flag. And then it's surface level, that sounds great. You're like, well, isn't that what you want? You don't want a deal that goes badly.

Brian Briscoe 18:31

But there's no perfect deals. Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:34

And the reality is you can be amazing. You could be an A operator, could have a fantastic deal. And guess what? Something still can go wrong, you know. And it's like that's just the nature of the business and with any investment.

Brian Briscoe 18:46

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just in the last year, I think I I've had three fires at three different properties, you know. Doesn't matter who you are, what you're operating, stuff like that happens, you know. So if they're not talking about their things that go wrong, that's definitely a red flag. So I would think that's more trying to hide things myself. But well, awesome. Well, we're getting close to where we have to start, you know, winding down here. So, Christy, I got a couple questions for

Education Plans And Beginner Advice

Brian Briscoe 19:14

you to finish up. Question number one, what's next for you?

Christy Schnurle 19:17

Yeah, so next, next for me is really hoping this market turns soon and bringing on we would love to have some good opportunities. We have investors that are looking to get into things. I would certainly say that. I also we are working on kind of helping other people who are newer into the space. So taking, you know, I'm really passionate about taking what I've learned over the last 18 years, breaking down some of the like, there's a lot of intimidation, especially in multifamily, because it sounds like we're just speaking a bunch of jargon and it's another language. So I love just freely educating people. So we do a lot of uh free Zooms and continuing to do that, where we're teaching people the basics of like how to look at these deals. What do these mean? How do they get structured? So whether you're a passive investor coming in and looking at it, or you're someone who wants to start raising capital, how do I do it? Where do I start? Like, what do I need to know? Those kinds of things, you know, we help people to do that. And we're continuing to kind of grow that audience in terms of people that are wanting to work together and kind of learn together and get into that space.

Brian Briscoe 20:24

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, those educational type uh offerings work really well for a lot of things. A lot of people who are reluctant to invest, if you start answering their questions when it comes time to invest, guess who they're picking to invest with? Not me, you, right? So now, next to last question, and that's uh if you had to give somebody who's just starting out some advice, what would that advice be?

Christy Schnurle 20:48

I would say be careful of shiny object syndrome. Because I think especially in the real estate space, so many people jump in and they want to do all the things because you start meeting people and someone over here is doing this, and someone over here is doing this, and they all look really exciting. Take some self-reflection, figure out what are my strengths, right? Am I a people person? Am I a numbers person? What do I gravitate to like naturally and what energizes me and excites me? Then go out and find your missing pieces with it. So it's like if I'm a numbers person, I should pair up and kind of figure out who's a good fit with me to go look at whatever the types of opportunities that's more of the people person. Like maybe we go raise capital and I'm more of the analyst side and they're more of the like investor meeting sides, you know. So I think really it's self-assessment, self-awareness and sticking to your lane. Like put your head down and just focus on whatever it is that your goal is instead of focusing on what everyone else is doing around you.

Brian Briscoe 21:44

I love it. I love it. Yeah. I mean, once find, I mean, some people call it your superpower or whatever, but you know, once you find that superpower and you're you're pushing towards your goals, you know, everything gets a lot more simple. Love that advice.

Where To Find Christy And Closing

Brian Briscoe 21:56

All right. Last one how can listeners learn more about you?

Christy Schnurle 21:59

Yeah. So I would say I'm on most of the social media platforms. So I do share a lot about beginning stuff with investing, multifamily general education, as well as um in the development and construction management space. So a lot of multifamily in general. So you can find me on LinkedIn. My profile is my name, Christy Schnurl. Same with Instagram, you know, YouTube and Facebook, all there.

Brian Briscoe 22:25

Awesome. We'll put links to your social media in there. And you mentioned the the webinars. Following you on social media?

Christy Schnurle 22:33

Yes, I usually do post that we're doing them, but more specifically, if you go to the opalfund.com backslash events, that page has whatever we have that's upcoming. So as we're releasing new educational information and Zooms, uh, we'll post it there.

Brian Briscoe 22:49

Awesome. And for people listening, we'll put uh the link to that in the show notes. And we'll also put the links to her uh social media's profiles in the show notes as well. So you don't have to worry about, you know, writing things down or spelling her last name. Just go click and the internet thing will whisk you away. But uh all right. Well, Christy, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Very much appreciate your time.

Christy Schnurle 23:14

Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you again for having me. And I think it's fantastic that people who are getting started have such a great resource here with your podcast and get to hear lessons from so many people and have you guiding them. It's fantastic.

Brian Briscoe 23:28

Appreciate that. Thank you. Hey, I hope you got a lot from today's conversation. Uh, if you did, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. We're on all major podcast platforms and YouTube as well. Now, if you're ready to move from listening to actually doing, check out the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community. That's where investors go deeper with live discussions, real time QA, and practical support around capital raising, finding deals, asset management, all of it. All right, you'll find everything you need at thetribe of titans.com. That link's in the show notes, tap it, and we'll see you there.