Real estate is a relationship business.  I’ve heard this a lot over the years.  I have experienced it in the engineering business which is a professional service business.  But this “relationship business” thing seems to be more prevalent in real estate than the professional services fields.  I attended the first annual Multifamily Investor Network event in Houston this past weekend and enjoyed the networking with various multifamily syndicators, thought leaders and service providers in the field.  It’s always nice to get face time with high quality people in the multifamily, buy-and-hold space.  Relationships develop and grow at events like this.  These interactions continue the open communications about the markets, submarkets, potential opportunities, existing asset performance and business plans, and future investment strategies.  Successful teams are transparent, highly responsive and available.  Having a network of people that you can trust and they trust you is critical in real estate.  I am a civil engineer so I think of the relationship being the bridge between two people.  The level of trust between those two people being the strength of that bridge.  Having relationships built on trust will generate opportunities.

“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” – Theodore Roosevelt