Podcasts have firmly arrived as their own genre. Even widely known TV newscasters, hosts, and commentators. It used to be they’re on TV for awhile, they get fired, then they’re on TV again at another network. Now they start their own podcast and make money off it.
I focus in on real estate podcasts, and I want to share some of the best. They’re not just about multifamily. They dive into industrial real estate, mindset skills, business motivation, and AI. I’m a guest on a few of them but some of these are just pure gold, so informative and so relevant. I highly recommend anyone with a passion for anything to nurture your passion with a library of podcasts.
Here are a few of my favorites.
The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons
Jay is an economist with a focus on rental housing. I’ve heard him at conferences and he knows the rental housing market as well as anyone. He shares research and hosts guests such as the Chief Economist from RealPage and other industry leaders.
The Best Ever CRE Show
There are actually several podcasts in this brand. I’m sure they’re all good but the ones I listen to are below.
Best Ever Unlimited Capital with Richard McGirr – Richard is a phenomenal capital raiser who has developed astounding systems. He’ll talk about his CRM, how he uses funds, and how critical sales skills are to capital raising. He has great guests, too, mostly from real estate.
Best Ever The Horizon with John Chang – John is the Chief Economist with Marcus & Millichap. His presentations are clear and very understandable, his data is comprehensive, and when he makes projections, they are well-founded. He makes economics entertaining, and it is very directed to real estate.
Best Ever Multifamily Mastery with John Casmon – John has a very engaging way of getting guests to dive deep into their subject areas. He shares his own experiences and the conversations are exceptionally informative. Many of the interviews are about journeys, how a successful investor got their start, what they did wrong as well as right.
Best Ever with Seth Bradley – Seth is the corporate attorney with Tribevest, a firm which facilitates capital raising through real estate funds. Seth’s podcast is a new addition to the Best Ever family but already Seth is sharing invaluable insights into the funds world of capital raising. It’s not just the legal aspects, but also the structures, the processes to get started, and how people are making it successful.
Raising Capital for Real Estate Investing with Amy Sylvis – Amy has developed a highly specialized expertise in the use of LinkedIn for capital raising, which grew out of her passion for real estate and her clear skills in networking. I’ve talked with her numerous times and she is always inquisitive, engaging, and helpful. You can hear that in her podcasts, and they all offer valuable insights that can move your business forward.
The Real Estate Guys Radio Show with Robert Helms – this is probably one of the most enduring podcasts and Robert one of the most experienced investors you’ll ever listen to. There’s no fluff with his podcasts, just constant insights.
Drunk Real Estate – this is a cast of four experienced investors, or it was. They stopped podcasting in August, 2025 after 109 episodes. It was by far the most entertaining of them all and always had good information. I’m including it here as a way to pressure them to restart it.
A few others that are absolutely worthwhile include
Weiss Advice with Yonah Weiss
Old Capital Real Estate Investing with Michael Becker and Paul Peebles
Cash Flow Connections, published by Hunter Thompson’s RaiseMasters and hosted sometimes by Hunter but also others.
Financial Freedom with Real Estate with Michael Blank
Real Estate Investing for Cash Flow with Kevin Bupp
These should keep you entertained and informed.
Market update
Raleigh, NC – If you’re an apartment investor, you’ve heard about Raleigh. It checks off everything investors want. Southern state. Growing population. Young, educated residents. Great universities. Favorable landlord/tenant regulations. Space to grow. Lifestyle. You name it.
But it also has a rental housing imbalance and developers have been rushing to fill the void.
While the population has pushed past 500,000 in the city, Raleigh has some stellar neighboring cities. The MSA includes Raleigh and Cary but what they refer to as Research Triangle includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. These are top tier university towns so there are smart people everywhere.
The population of the MSA, though, is around 1.5 million. If you add Durham and Chapel Hill it’s 2.4 million. That’s significant because it means there is a solid base of real estate assets in an area that has some of the best investment attributes of any region in the country.
Population in the Raleigh MSA continues to grow, too, 44% over the last 20 years. Not many cities can claim that. Jobs growth is keeping up with the population growth. After the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 it has averaged 3.4% with a respectable 1.7% in 2025.
With a market which had been so strong for so long, though, developers move in. This happened in a major way in Raleigh. Over 10,000 new units were completed in 2025. That represents about 5% of total supply. Generally anything above the long-term national average of 2-3% is a significant expansion. That’s great for a region in need of rental inventory but not great for investors who bought apartments before that time period.
Rents in Raleigh for studios and 1 bedroom units rose over 8% in the last 12 months, according to Renthop.com, but rents for 2 bedroom units? Down over 8%, and rents for 3 bedroom units down almost 4%. You can draw your own conclusions for why these are such different metrics but if you bought apartments with 2 or 3 bedroom units just a few short years ago, you may be having challenges.
What does that mean for today? New apartment deliveries are very easy to predict over the next two years. Developers take out permits and start development. When they project completion is public information, tracked and reported by Costar and other services. You can see what’s coming. The days of low interest rates are behind us and when rates are high, not as much development is started.
You can see two things in Raleigh: 1) not a lot of new apartment units will be coming on line in the next 2-3 years, and 2) a lot of owners will want to throw in the towel and sell. That’s a rare opportunity.
That’s true for nearly every market in the U.S. but Raleigh has a higher number of additional very positive qualities that most other cities can’t claim. My favorite is it’s not far from the Outer Banks, one of the most beautiful stretches of the eastern U.S. coastline.
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Finer Points of Multifamily Properties
Out of Town Owner Strategies
I’ve had great outcomes owning apartments in cities that I couldn’t easily drive to. My first properties were a half hour away and I was the one who had to fix the issues, see the problem first-hand, talk to someone on site, and post notices. I was relieved to be out of those roles when I bought further away and engaged third party management.
Are you thinking of doing the same? You should get over your need to be able to drive to your property. Opportunity comes with market conditions, not proximity to home. If your local market has the right attributes, terrific, no need to look out of town, but chances are with some research you’ll find markets which are faster growing, have more companies moving to them, more paths of progress, rent regulations more favorable to landlords and owners, more properties available to buy, higher quality property managers, affordability, and airport access.
You buy the property, take over management, and now how do you execute your business plan when you’re hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Manage your property manager. Include in your interviewing process questions about metrics that they track, processes they have in place, turn times, numbers and skills of contractors in their network, proposed budget, and rent comps. If their answers are vague, they’re making it up.
Set up recurring meetings and have an agenda for each meeting. Ask for a written report on key metrics one day prior to the meeting so you can discuss it at the meeting. Review every financial report and discuss every unexpected item in the report. Keep your own issues tracking because they will hope you forget about it. Have one or more backup PMs who could also do a good job, because when you have problems with a PM, in far too many cases the fixes they implement don’t last long. Don’t hang on to a bad PM.
Hire a person local to that market to walk your property. Once a month. This should be someone who has some experience with real estate, like a retired contractor. They’re looking for broken windows, trash, suspicious people hanging around, cars in disrepair, clogged gutters, overhanging trees, problems at neighboring properties.
Why can’t your PM do this? You aren’t there. They’ll tell you they do this but you can’t know for sure. Just hire someone once to walk your property and you’ll be surprised at what they report. One guy I had walking my property told me he saw the tenant watering the grass and washing his car. That grass was a rich dark green. Beautiful. But not what I wanted. Another time he was talking to a tenant who was outside. There was a lot of furniture sitting next to the dumpster. This tenant knew exactly who put it there.
Join Facebook groups for real estate investors in that city. These can be a wealth of information. Who builds stairs. Attorneys who do evictions. Handymen, plumbers, electricians, structural engineers, architects. Anybody had to deal with the city? Somebody in that group knows who you’re looking for, and is glad to share it if you post your question.
Keep brokers up to date. You probably know a few of them in this area if you own a property. They get sale listings because they developed a relationship with owners. They’re highly motivated to help you. And they have their finger on the pulse of your market better than anyone. There’s no harm in sharing updates about your property. Your experience with the PM, occupancy challenges, starting to get better rents, issues with city inspectors. They’re not going to use that information against you, and they’ll proactively reach out to you to share news.
Visit the property. You may not learn anything that you don’t already know but the on-site managers will see that you care. That goes a long way toward motivating them.
Now you can expand your horizons. Find properties that make money. Not just ones you can drive to. “I’d rather be driving to the mail box to pick up my checks than driving to my properties.” said my coach.
“ Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
― Benjamin Franklin, from his list of 12 virtues
Who We Are
Cardinal Oak Investments acquires, improves, and manages under-valued commercial apartments.
We buy A and B class properties of 100 units or more in the Southeast and Midwest.
We look for properties whose amenities, aesthetics, and appeal have fallen into obsolescence, whose care reflects tired management, and whose location is where a stable workforce wants to live.
And we partner with like-minded investors looking for stable assets that produce good cash flow and strong appreciation.
Founded and managed by John Todderud, Cardinal Oak Investments has acquired properties on both coasts and in between creating annual double-digit returns.
For more information, schedule time with me or send an email to john@cardinaloak.com.
Please note: Past performance is no indication of future performance.