An Interview With Mathew Owens

By Christina Suter on Jan 28, 2017 at 11:45 AM in Real Estate Issues
An Interview With Matthew Owens

This week I had the opportunity to interview Mathew Owens, founder of OCG Properties, on my Ask Christina First Radio Show. OCG Properties specializes in equity and cash flowing real estate investments. Mathew earned his CPA license while performing audits and taxations and he primarily works with large real estate clients. He's purchased and renovated over 500 properties and he helps investors develop various cash flow streams among many other things.

As an experienced flipper, I asked Mathew about the systems that need to be put into place to be successful. A single person can successfully flip 6-8 houses in a year whether their systems work or not, but Mathew handles something like 5 houses a month as well as other forms of investing so hearing his take on systems was invaluable. 

On the flip side of the business, Mathew says you must have a very good renovation system with good quality control on the backend. You have to have an acquisition system to find properties and good deals and then work that into the renovation system so you know how much it'll cost to do each job. The property management side of his business is key, it will make or break the entire investment as he learned the hard way. His experience has shown him that as you flip, it's important to be in a position that even if the market changes or an issue comes up, you're able to maneuver around that so you can focus on problem-solving to get your business through.

There's an analysis side of the process, which takes hours on something like a multi-unit investment. There are the systems that keep up with what's going on in the industry, what others are doing and keeping up with technology. A lot of people learn about the flip itself but they don't learn more about what's going on around them, technology, new methods, and things that can make them more efficient. OCG Properties has just started using a software called Rently where they don't have to use leasing agents because people log into the software and can schedule their own showing. 

Mathew's goals are $50,000 a month in passive cash flow after all the overhead is covered for his entire company. He outlines how exactly he plans on getting to that goal (from 1 week through 5 years). Mathew said when his son was born he realized he wanted a lot more passive cash flow. He endured losses and steep learning curves and even overcame and learned from people stealing from him. Mathew says it's important to keep going and to focus more on the solutions than on the problems when it comes to becoming successful and reaching the goals you've set for your business. He says it's important to not only focus on how to get yourself out of tough situations when losses do occur but to take ownership for them and to do so with integrity. 

I asked Mathew to tell me about his hold model and how people can engage with him using his hold model. Mathew says that with any of his single and multi-family units they do a full renovation with an inspection report with a full disclosure checklist. He says investors, of course, can buy a property from OCG and they will manage it or they can do it at OCG cost where they put 20% down, get a bank loan and have a turnkey property with a tenant in place and buy it from OCG where the investor takes 75% of the cash flow, OCG takes 25% and there is a 50/50 equity split and they hold them long term. The interests are aligned and OCG doesn't make money up front, they just make cash flow with their investors. 

You can reach Mathew for additional information on his business at www.ocgproperties.com or you can email him at [email protected]. The OCG website has free reading materials and podcasts to help you learn more.