Rural Ohio Multifamily Investing: 930 Units With Lee Yoder

Lee invests where institutional buyers cannot move capital efficiently. He buys at 8% going-in cap rates and holds for cash flow instead of a five-year flip.

What the episode covers

• Why Lee owns nothing inside the outer belt in Cincinnati or Columbus, even though he believes both are strong markets.
• The cost-of-capital gap between institutional buyers and emerging syndicators, and how it prices smaller operators out of 100+ unit deals in primary markets.
• What it looks like to operate C-class multifamily in Williamsburg, Ohio, northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana, including how Lee built a local team from scratch.
• The K-shaped rental market in Greater Cincinnati: Class A rents climbing, C-class one-bedrooms still under pressure, and why putting $8K into a unit renovation can hurt right now.
• How Lee brought property management in-house, what it cost him operationally, and why he says it was worth it.
• The leasing shift in Greater Cincinnati: fewer concessions, rising one-bedroom rents, and what the data from Rent Engine shows week over week.

Terms used in the episode

• Going-in cap rate: the first-year net operating income divided by the purchase price.
• K-shaped market: different segments moving in opposite directions at the same time, such as Class A rents climbing while C-class one-bedrooms stay under pressure.
• Outer belt: the ring highway around Cincinnati or Columbus, which Lee treats as the boundary of where he buys.

Listen

Stream Episode 9 on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. To compare Lee's view with a broker's, read Cincinnati multifamily from the broker side.