LIKE BROTHER LIKE OTHER BROTHER After having graduated from the University of Oregon as well and then had a stint as a professional poker player (once winning $13,000 in an online hand), Phillip decided that real estate made more sense than Texas Hold’em. Nine months after Andrew left for Kansas City, Phillip joined him. Phillip made the prudent rec- ommendation to switch the focus from apartments to houses. For one thing, Kansas City is full of houses. It has one of the largest ratios of houses to apartments in the country. But furthermore, it made financing much easier. Bill and Andrew had built up a stable of private lenders in Oregon for their flips. And while each of them was hesitant to start lending all the way out in Kansas City, they all eventually came around. (Having boots on the ground was critical to persuading them.) This allowed Phillip and Andrew to ramp up the BRRRR strategy; i.e., buy a property with a loan from a private lender, rehab the proper- ty, rent it out and then put a few of these houses together and bring them to a bank to refinance out the private loans. When done right, this strategy allowed Stewardship Investments to leave none of its own money in the property. Since the properties were bought at a discount, even though they were fully financed with the private lender (purchase and rehab), when the bank refinanced them, they did so at appraised value. So if the purchase and rehab amounted to only 75 percent of the After Repair Value (which it by no means always did), Stewardship refinanced out 100 percent of the private loan and had an investment property with none of their own money tied up in it.
Andrew Syrios
As of this writing, the real estate market is extremely hot and the BRRRR strategy is more difficult than it once was. But that by no means makes it impossible. The sto- ry of Bill, Andrew and Phillip Syrios is a testament to the power of buy and hold real estate investing and more evidence it’s something pru- dent investors should prioritize. •
Back then, it was very hard to find banks willing to lend as so many took big losses in the 2008-financial crisis. But then again, it was also much easier to find properties to buy as there were so many REOs (bank owned properties) for sale. Every market has its challenges. Andrew settled into overseeing acquisition, rehab and financing. Phillip, being the younger brother, got property management. Together, with Bill in Oregon helping to find private lenders and shape compa- ny strategy, they continued to buy, rehab, rent and refinance more and more properties to get to where they are today, with well over 500.
You can find more by watching Andrew and Phillip’s YouTube channel “The Syrios Brothers,” visiting Andrew’s blog www.AndrewSyrios.com or Stewardship Investments’ company website at www.StewardshipProperties.com.
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