538: Multifamily Is A Great, But Hard Business

Multifamily is an easy business to understand, but hard to run. It’s a low margin business, so efficiency is critical, and lack of efficiency can bury you. Just barely moving the needle in leasing, for example, can translate into a huge impact on profitability. The same can be said of maintenance. Nothing adversely impacts tenant retention than slow maintenance response times or poor work. Multifamily is a great business, but a lot of things must go right every day. Ivan Barratt, Founder and CEO of the BAM companies, has done a great job building an impressive portfolio of 25 assets with over 6000 units and $1.3 Billion assets under management.