EP 514 - Discover How Jerry Kong Built a $26M+ Real Estate Portfolio Across Multifamily and Single-Family Assets
When Jerry Kong sells a single-family home, buyers walk through the door with a compass app open to check the feng shui. When he leases an apartment, tenants just say, "Cool, where do I sign?" That single realization pushed Jerry — alongside his partners Anthony and April — from single-family investing into building a multifamily portfolio spanning Portland, Denver, San Antonio, and Tennessee, with over $50 million in assets under management and 1,000-plus doors. In this episode, Jerry breaks down the exact structure of his first-ever capital raise — a $1.6 million deal split four ways with an experienced sponsor, where he personally raised just shy of $400,000 over two and a half grueling months — and how leveraging that sponsor's name changed the way brokers treated him in his home market almost overnight. He also shares why he calls the biggest, most established operator in any new market before making a move, how radical transparency turned a friend's Porsche fund into an investment in his deal instead, and why the best compliment an investor can give is skipping the webinar because they already trust the process. Whether you're trying to structure your first capital raise or figure out how to keep investors engaged between deals, Jerry's approach to building credibility through consistency and honesty is a rare, unfiltered look inside how a real multifamily team actually operates. Five key takeaways: Multifamily is a fundamentally different sale than single-family. Jerry pivoted away from single-family, where emotional buyers scrutinize everything down to the feng shui, toward multifamily, where tenants sign a lease as a straightforward business transaction — a much better fit for his finance-driven, numbers-first mindset. Everyone on the team has to raise, no exceptions. Jerry's team runs on one rule: no matter your specialty — underwriting, investor relations, marketing — you're still expected to raise capital, because relying on one person for deal flow creates a single point of failure, as they learned firsthand when a team member's personal crisis stalled an entire market. Borrow the biggest name in any new market. Instead of competing against the top established operator in an unfamiliar market, Jerry calls them directly to partner, since that operator has likely already seen — and passed on — the deal for reasons a newcomer might completely miss. Radical transparency builds more trust than a polished pitch. Jerry never leads with upside; he walks investors through the worst-case scenario and every real-world risk built into his underwriting — which is exactly what convinced a savvy investor to delay buying his son a car and invest in Jerry's deal instead. Consistent, personal communication is a credibility engine. Sending newsletters from a personal email instead of a mass-mailer address, doing three touches per distribution, and treating an investor's "no thank you, I don't need the webinar" as the ultimate compliment are what keep investors coming back deal after deal. About Tim Mai Tim Mai is a real estate investor, fund manager, mentor, and founder of HERO Mastermind for REI coaches. He has helped many real estate investors and coaches become millionaires. Tim continues to help busy professionals earn income and build wealth through passive investing. He is also a creative marketer and promoter with incredible knowledge and experience, which he freely shares. He has lifted himself from the aftermath of war, achieving technical expertise in computers, followed by investment success in real estate, management skills, and a lofty position among real estate educators and internet marketers. Tim is an industry leader who has acquired and exited well over $50 million worth of real estate and is currently an investor in over 2700 units of multifamily apartments. Connect with Tim Website: Capital Raising Party Facebook: Tim Mai | Capital Raising Nation Instagram: @timmaicom Twitter: @timmai LinkedIn: Tim Mai YouTube: Tim Mai
