Property Profits Real Estate Podcast

What changes when an apartment is rented one bedroom at a time instead of one unit at a time?
For Zach Feldman, that is one of the big ideas behind a student housing portfolio that has grown to thousands of beds across the country.
Expanded Description
Zach’s firm has built more than 5,000 student housing beds and currently owns and operates about 4,300, with another 1,000 under construction.
He explains how purpose built student housing differs from traditional multifamily. Residents sign individual bedroom leases, units come fully furnished, and the best locations are close enough to campus that students can walk there in minutes.
Zach also explains why the business is not easy. Development approvals are becoming more costly and difficult. A soft cost package that may once have cost around $50,000 can now reach $500,000 or even $1 million before the developer knows whether a project will move ahead.
He also shares how annual turnover and preleasing affect the business, including why leasing can begin a full year before a building opens.
Key Topics and Takeaways
Why student housing is rented by the bed
How four bedroom units change the revenue per square foot
Why pedestrian access to campus matters
How large institutional buyers participate in student housing
Why entitlement costs have become a major barrier
How student housing can be preleased before construction is complete
Guest Information
Zach Feldman is a student housing developer and owner operator. His firm has built more than 5,000 student housing beds across markets ranging from upstate New York to Arizona.
Email: gf@aptitudere.com
Website: aptitudere.com
Call to Action
Zach invited anyone interested in discussing student housing, upcoming opportunities, or real estate in general to contact him directly.
Email: gf@aptitudere.com
Website: aptitudere.com

A single family rental was making Katrina Robinson about $200 a month in profit. After she started renting the same home by the bed, the numbers changed in a big way.
Katrina now operates three co living homes in San Antonio while living in California. Her residents often receive income through SSI, SSDI, or the VA and can handle their own daily activities. The homes provide housing only. Katrina and her company do not provide personal care services.
She explains how a typical four bedroom property can work, why she brought in an operations manager after her second home, and why that manager is paid based on occupied beds.
Katrina also talks about the harder parts of the business. Rent collection needs to stay inside the system. Maintenance reserves matter. Vacancies can quietly become expensive. At one point, six empty beds represented about $4,000 in lost monthly revenue.
Key topics and takeaways:
Why Katrina rents rooms and beds instead of the whole home
The numbers behind an eight bed shared home
Why she recommends at least four bedrooms
How an operations manager helps keep the homes running
House rules that reduce resident conflict
Why cameras are used in common areas
How Katrina builds referral relationships with caseworkers and social workers
Why she reviews the business numbers every Monday during her CEO hour
Guest information:
Katrina E. Robinson operates three co living homes in San Antonio, Texas, while living in the Los Angeles area. She also teaches other property owners how to use this housing model.
Website: co-livingbusiness.com
Tools and platforms mentioned:
RentReady
PadSplit
Call to action:
Katrina is looking to connect with people who already own single family rentals, especially properties with at least four bedrooms that may only be producing a few hundred dollars in monthly profit.
Visit co-livingbusiness.com to connect with Katrina and discuss whether that property could be changed to a co living home.

Real estate does not have to produce a home run every time to make sense.
For Dipesh Sitaram, years of investing across different real estate sectors led him back to the field he understood best: healthcare.
Dipesh has spent 20 years in healthcare. That experience gave him a close look at how practices and surgery centers operate, what their real estate needs look like, and why many healthcare tenants are willing to sign longer leases.
He tells Dave that the COVID period became a real litmus test for him. While he watched other areas of real estate struggle, his experience in healthcare looked different. Healthcare tenants kept paying rent and business carried on.
That helped shape a simple philosophy: real estate is a long game.
Dipesh is not focused on speculative deals that need huge appreciation in a short time. His preference is the kind of steady approach he describes as hitting doubles rather than expecting a home run every time.
He also walks through one of his favorite properties, a 20,000 square foot Midwest surgery center. After revitalizing the building, the tenants saw enough value in the improvements to enter into a long term lease. The property remains in the portfolio.
In This Conversation
Why Dipesh focuses on healthcare and healthcare adjacent real estate
What his experience in hospitality, multifamily, and condos taught him
Why COVID became his personal test for real estate stability
How revitalizing a surgery center helped strengthen the tenant relationship
Why higher interest rates, lower tenancy, and higher operating costs created problems in multifamily
Why investors should study both the property and the operator
Why subject matter expertise, experience, and a clear exit plan matter to Dipesh
About Dipesh Sitaram
Dipesh Sitaram has spent 20 years in healthcare and brings that operating experience into real estate. His current holdings are mainly specialty surgery centers, with investments concentrated in the Midwest and Central Texas.
He describes his approach simply: slow and steady wins the race.

Google Ads may look familiar on the surface, but Dan Barrett says the game underneath has changed.
Keywords and clever ad copy matter less than many investors think. The bigger opportunity is giving Google better data about which leads are actually worth pursuing.
Expanded Description
Dan Barrett works with real estate investors through AdWords Nerds, with most of his clients focused on motivated sellers.
He explains how Google Ads has moved from a world of manual bidding and detailed keyword control into a system driven much more by algorithms. Instead of spending most of the time adjusting bids, Dan focuses on the full lead funnel.
That includes the landing page, CRM connection, lead quality, appointments, and the information that gets sent back to Google.
Dan also explains why investors may choose between a smaller number of higher quality leads or a larger number of lower cost leads. Neither approach is automatically right. The best setup depends on the market, the investor's systems, and how much lead volume the business can handle.
Key Topics and Takeaways
Why Google Ads now depends heavily on algorithm training
Why keywords and ad copy have less control than they once did
How landing page speed and mobile performance affect results
The difference between a high quality strategy and a high volume strategy
Why Dan may track appointments or qualified leads instead of every lead
How conversion rates can change the cost of a lead
Why Google Ads should not be the only marketing channel in the business
Guest Information
Dan Barrett works with AdWords Nerds and has spent about 16 years focused on Google Ads for real estate investors.
Website: AdWordsNerds.com
Dan said the site includes free content, blog posts, podcasts, and an option to book a session with his team.
Call to Action
Visit AdWordsNerds.com to learn more, explore the free content, or book a session with the AdWords Nerds team.

Real estate conditions can look very different from one Ontario market to the next.
In this September 2026 update, Simi Mehta shares what she is seeing across her portfolio and why Pembroke has been especially strong for rental demand. She also explains why she is putting more attention on industrial units in Pickering.
Simi walks through how one of her joint ventures works using a 38-unit apartment building in Pembroke as an example. Four investors brought different amounts of capital into the project and received shares based on what they invested. After the property was renovated and refinanced, the investors received their original capital back plus profit while remaining invested in the property.
She also shares an update on a Cornwall property that had two commercial units and a former gym. Simi and her team worked with the City of Cornwall to turn the gym space into six apartments. The project is nearing completion, with leasing and refinancing planned as the next steps.
In this episode, Simi discusses:
Why she looks beyond the GTA for deals• The different rental conditions she is seeing in Pembroke and Kitchener• Her current mix of single-family homes, multiplexes, and industrial units• Industrial units in Pickering starting at $125,000• How her 38-unit Pembroke joint venture was structured• The difference between a joint venture investment and private lending in her business• The Cornwall conversion from a gym to six residential units• Her recent spiritual retreat and what she learned about acceptance and time
To connect with Simi, she prefers phone calls or text messages at 647-868-3955. She can also be reached at investwithsimi@gmail.com.

Buying during a difficult market is one thing. Setting up a deal so it can survive what comes next is another.
Dan Brisse says the current multifamily market has created something investors have not seen in a long time: owners under serious pressure and properties available at much lower cost bases.
Granite Towers is mainly focused on value add apartments around Dallas and Nashville. Dan explains why his team wants to be a distressed buyer rather than a distressed seller, and how lessons from the last several years have changed the way they look at leverage, debt, reserves, and hold periods.
Dan also shares what happened when three economists at a recent conference gave three completely different predictions for interest rates. His conclusion was simple. You have to structure a deal so you can win no matter which direction rates move.
Key topics and takeaways
Why distressed multifamily sellers are creating buying opportunities
How Granite Towers moved out of bridge debt and reduced leverage
Why taking care of the property and residents comes before distributions
How Dan communicates with investors on the first day of every month
Why Dan does not want a deal to depend on lower interest rates
The type of apartment properties Granite Towers knows best
Why Dan prefers giving real estate 5, 7, or 10 years to season
Guest information
Dan Brisse is a former professional snowboarder and cofounder of Granite Towers. Dave notes that Granite Towers has more than 3,000 apartment units in its portfolio, along with triple net lease properties.
Granite Towers is mainly looking at multifamily opportunities around Dallas and Nashville, with select investments in Minnesota.
Website:
granitetowersequitygroup.com
Call to action
To connect with Dan and Granite Towers, visit granitetowersequitygroup.com and use the Contact Us page. Dan says people can leave their email and phone number to arrange a call or join the company database to see future deals.