parallax

Commercial real estate investing done right.

Tailored, end-to-end CRE investment and capital solutions. Transparent transactions fueled by relationships, focused on you.


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OUR PARTNERS

Custom.Leadership

Patrick Truhlar
Patrick Truhlar

Prior to co-founding Custom., Patrick launched and exited three financial services firms including a boutique investment banking firm, a registered investment advisory firm, and an insurance distribution platform. He's been asked to advise a local bank as a non-statutory board adviser with seats on the credit and loan committees. He’s served as lead transaction counsel on dozens of M&As, including three Top 100 insurance firms. A former Big Six CPA with Accreditation in Business Valuation, he has a Master’s Degree in Accounting with a Specialization in Tax. He has also been an Investment Advisor Representative, a real estate broker, a mortgage broker, and amateur attorney. He reads legal documents for fun. Our Expander.

Jason Milton
Jason Milton

Prior to co-founding Custom., Jason was a Fortune 500 highly accomplished global sales leader in the mixed use real estate industry with a reputation for turning around under-performing teams within months. As the Vice President of the Forbes #1 Top 2000 Growth Champion, DAMAC Properties with $2B in annual real estate sales, Jason headed operations in Dubai and London with brands Fendi Casa, Roberto Cavalli home, Versace Casa, and more. He's spearheaded innovative projects including the largest condo conversion in U.S. history, The Flamingo in South Beach. Jason has an extensive network of investors in Mumbai, Barcelona, Milan, and Shanghai. He reads the room for fun. Our Simplifier.

DECADES OF COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE

Over $500M+ in closed transactions.

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They conduct themselves with decorum and value the broker's unique role in any transaction. Great attitude, even better results.

Top CRE Brokerage Team

Their leaders have supported our firm with sizable investments and I support them. This team works harder than anyone to win.

Former Top Podcast Host
Frequently Asked Questions

A primer on our unique approach and pioneering culture.

We identify attractive off-market, pre-market, and hard-to-find CRE investments across the U.S. that meet our strict underwriting requirements and then match them with accredited investors.

We add value in a variety of ways:

Capital Management

  • •  We identify and pre-qualify primarily recourse lenders to generate interest in both the deal and the investor.
  • •  We leverage our scale as a repeat buyer with many different lenders in an effort to lower borrowing costs, or at a minimum, to provide the best available terms that we could identify in the market.
  • •  We are willing to contribute capital to support closing a transaction.
  • •  From the lender’s perspective, we leverage their deposit base together with our deal flow to spur loan growth, thereby maximizing their operating ratios.

Deal Sourcing

We market and speak to off-market and pre-market sellers and also brokers, and other sources to find value in prospective investments and to attempt to minimize any additional layers of costs.

Due Diligence

  • •  We streamline the due diligence process by organizing everything the client might need to close.
  • •  We perform due diligence through many different lenses and seek to identify key risks and rewards associated with any particular investment.

Education and Mentorship

For less experienced investors we are both a source of education and mentorship via the transactional process and an extra set of eyes to minimize errors in the CRE investing process.

Investor Presentation

  • •  We help clients develop their investor resumes and answer questions about the development of their Personal Financial Statements (“PFS”).
  • •  We review private company investment valuations on their PFS and explain those values when necessary.
  • •  Overall we help our lending partners understand the unique value of providing funding to our clients and discuss the lifetime value of the potential relationship.

Legal

  • •  Through a reputable third-party law firm, we have worked with for decades, investors get the benefit of lower cost, turn-key limited liability company formation, and FEIN application and associated documentation for those who prefer to stay focused on other things.
  • •  Our outsourced legal team can step in and coordinate with other legal advisors and brokers so third-party legal expenses are minimized.

Tax

  • •  We work with other professional advisors to build a plan to maximize the tax efficiency of their investments including, but not limited to, cost segregation and the associated depreciation estimates and analyses.
  • •  We explain the legislative sunset impacting bonus depreciation over the coming years and its impact to the timing of their CRE investments.

Time Value

  • •  We are a point of leverage for investors who recognize the high value of their own time.
  • •  We allow investors to focus on where they can add the most value in business, thereby saving many hours of their time trying to invest in CRE the right way.

Transaction Management

  • •  We utilize our proprietary, tech-enabled transaction management process to streamline the lending, appraisal, insurance, inspection, due diligence, and closing processes.
  • •  We minimize the chances of missing a deadline with redundancies built into our proprietary process to keep everything on track.
  • •  We help arrange cost segregation service providers and validate pricing.
  • •  We help investors transition from pre-closing to post-closing and assist in the engagement of property and asset management service providers.
  • •  We help arrange insurance coverage options through independent third-party professional relationships with a service-oriented brokerage firms.
  • •  We provide data and scheduling support for the blind, bank-led appraisal process.

Underwriting

  • •  We underwrite the borrower and the property through the lens of a bank credit or loan committee and assist in the preparation of a proper, approved loan submission.
  • •  We underwrite the property to determine if the deal makes sense and to ensure we agree with assumptions made by the other side.

Lending Options

We have custom capital strategies that can involve traditional bank lenders, CMBS lenders, life insurance companies, mortgage brokers, private capital sources, and varying types of risk transfer mechanisms that can reduce the cash an investor needs to close a transaction.*That said, we believe leverage must be prudently managed based on an investor’s individual needs and tolerance for risk. In this regard, we always recommend speaking with your financial or other professional advisor when making leverage decisions.

Education

Our team believes in the value education. We have licensed real estate brokers, former CPAs, insurance professionals, tax professionals, legal professionals, CCIMs, and most of our staff have college degrees with accounting, business, and finance focuses.

Experience

We have collectively completed over $500M+ in U.S. and international business/commercial real estate transactions. We have experience in most asset classes including, but not limited to, retail, industrial, flex, multi-family, office, and hospitality.

Note that we have limited experience in house when it comes to investing in speculative land investments, special use properties, and certain types of advanced medical properties. If you are looking for such opportunities there are likely better service providers to meet your unique needs.

Relationships

We have a carefully cultivated network of appraisers, title insurance professionals, direct marketers, digital marketers, commercial real estate brokers, property owners, lenders, accounting and legal professionals, and financial advisors who have either worked with us in the past or know of someone who has. We leverage this network to find deals, raise capital, and give great service that lends to people referring business to us.

Scale

We represent scale to the CRE investment community, but more importantly we represent an opportunity for you to scale your portfolio. With us your capital can go farther so you can maximize expiring tax benefits and hopefully build a portfolio large enough to replace your income over time.

Speed

Yes, we close on time and speed is always a driver for hard-to-find deals. However, we offer an opportunity to invest faster than you would if you tried to manage every piece yourself and also raise additional private capital.

Time

After all the dust settles the only commodity that truly matters is time. How we invest and spend it dictates how fulfilled our lives will be. Have you ever thought about the value of your time? Whatever it is, if you are on our website, it is high. Your free time is even more valuable yet. We allow you to maximize the value of your time and help you level up faster.

Underwriting

There are far more reasons not to do a deal than there are reasons to do one. Some people get stuck on analysis paralysis. Others wish they invested more time “in the weeds” before proceeding. We have already built the templates, spreadsheets, external network, and internal resources to have an underwriting edge, so you don’t have to.

Our focus is from $5M to $25M, but we will go higher and lower as needed. We do not handle transactions for less than $2.0M unless they are a part of a multi-asset acquisition program. We also currently do not handle transactions above $50M unless you are an all-cash investor.

Accredited Investors (basically (a) $200K per year income for the last two years or $300K if married and filing tax returns jointly, or (b) $1M in net worth excluding your house. Not sure if you are accredited? Just contact us and we will help you figure it all out!)

These requirement are found in 17 CFR § 230.501(a)(5) and (6).

We are working to implement and commit to evolving a robust cybersecurity policy pursuant to 23 NYCRR 500. This information security program focuses on data governance, access control / identity management, disaster recovery, network monitoring, quality assurance, and PII privacy protocols that meet or exceed recommended fraud detection requirements. Our systems are continually updated to meet the ever-changing threat landscape and we commit to keeping you informed in the event of a cybersecurity event.

We perform many types of due diligence. It is easy to check boxes. Making spreadsheets is not much harder (great spreadsheets are a different story however). But experience and collective wisdom mean the numbers tell a story. And we know most of the tricks and see through the smoke and mirrors. It is our hope and intention that by the time we are involved we have isolated key risks and benefits so you can focus on decision making. All the analysis will be there under the hood, but at the end of the day we think deals come down to a handful of unique considerations. We do a lot of work to get there, but the decision should be made based on risk minimization first, and then the potential for reward. It is not a profit maximization business; it is a risk management one.

While some of our professionals have real estate brokerage licenses or advanced accreditations in commercial real estate, we are not a real estate brokerage firm.

There are several ways. Before you close on any CRE transaction with us we will have performed due diligence and underwritten the deal. Next, you and/or your advisors have an opportunity to validate our work, and/ or request any additional information or documentation you need to support your decision to invest. Further, lenders are penalized heavily by having loans go bad in a fractional reserve system. Thus, the bank will also underwrite the investment and run a blind, bank-led appraisal process. The appraiser will therefore also opine on the value of a transaction. Does that mean the process is foolproof? No. And we think you should be very suspicious of anyone who says otherwise.

We tend to generally gravitate to asset classes that do not require specialized knowledge such as retail, industrial, multi-family, office, and flex space. Examples of asset classes or types of transactions that require specialized knowledge might include hospitals, hospitality repositionings, car washes, amusement parks, or racetracks. That said we do have the tools and resources to handle many of these transactions but prefer to only work with investors who have experience in the space, or who are working with a competent commercial real estate broker with a narrow niche focus. We do not handle raw land transactions or ground-up development projects.

When you invest in a REIT you are also taking systemic risk. When the markets sell off, REITs tend to do the same. That said, they are a great investment vehicle for investors looking to increase their exposure to hard assets like real estate. Syndications have a sponsor or general partner who runs the deal(s). You are investing both in the property and the skill of individual syndicators. We believe in syndications and have and do invest in both REITs and syndications ourselves. We are different in that we allow our investor clients to be the person calling the shots on an investment. They usually hire professionals to manage their investments, but they want to control the timing of a sale or refinancing transaction. Our clients also maximize tax deductions and control the capital stack. Basically, they control how much leverage they use.

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