Community Highlights: Meet Apurva Shah of JAYS Investments

Today we’d like to introduce you to Apurva Shah.

Hi Apurva, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m Apurva Shah! I’m a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at JAYS Investments, LLC. We’re a private equity real estate investment firm based out of Raleigh, NC. My journey in real estate started at a very young age. I was born and raised in New York, my dad who is also my role model, shared a lot of his experiences with me from engineering to building and developing office/commercial real estate. Growing up he’d take me around and show me the different projects he’d be working on and I saw that real estate has a way of changing the entire outlook of a community.

After graduating college, I moved down to Raleigh, NC to work in corporate as an Product Manager/Engineer and I wanted to continue to fuel my passion for real estate so, not having any money as a post-college kid, I started to leverage my corporate career in engineering to fuel the capital needed to start flipping single-family houses and wholesaling homes. This built up a capital stack for me which also allowed me to start doing single-family rentals.  This is where I met my now business partner Jack Yen. We both were destined to do larger deals and built a much larger business where we can impact those around us, so we sold our entire single-family portfolio and went into investing into affordable housing.

We now invest in mobile home parks, multi-family apartment buildings, self-storage, and commercial real estate.

Our goal is to build a community in every property that we invest in and add value as we continue to build our real estate empire. The goal of JAYS Investments, LLC is not only to drive significant investment yields for our investors but also to give back by allocating resources to the communities we invest in.

Today, JAYS Investments, LLC manages and owns over $50MM in real estate and continues to grow within the Southeast.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an entrepreneur say the road is easy without struggles. The journey for me has had incredible highs and also many lows. Early on, I didn’t have any money to invest in real estate and had to rely on partners, hard money, investors, etc. and there was an inherent risk when doing these deals since you won’t know what you find once you’re in a deal or really know the people you’re working with. We had to continue to be resilient and push through to see the end goal.

A great example is one of the first deals in real estate, we were under contract for $95k with a renovation budget of $20k and during our final walk through when we’ve already spent thousands of dollars in due diligence we realized that someone cut out ALL the copper pipes in the home and the electrical wires in the entire home. This would add another $25k to our renovation budget which we didn’t have. We had to go back to the seller, explain the situation in which they were not aware, renegotiate the contract, find additional contractors, and work through where/how we’d find the additional money to complete this renovation. “Luckily”, we were able to push through and the outcome was in our favor. We ended up profiting over $75k on that flip. This is what ultimately hooked me on to the real estate game.

During the course of our business and scaling our company, we’ve heard so many people that it’s not possible to start with no money in real estate, it’s not possible to work in corporate and build a multi-million dollar company, and there were so many naysayers telling us that it’s a terrible time to be in real estate “you should stick to your well paying corporate job”. My goal is to stay focused on what matters the most to you, work as hard as you possibly can to achieve your dreams, and ultimately the folks who tell you you can’t do something, likely have not been able to do it themselves.

We’ve been impressed with JAYS Investments, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
With over 15 years of experience in real estate, JAYS Investments LLC is a firm that is disciplined, focused, and committed to sound investment assets. We strive to be a trusted and reliable real estate investment partner focused on high-growth markets and a diversified portfolio that brings our investors on average a 17%-25% targeted internal rate of return (IRR).

We target multi-family, mixed-use, and mobile home park real estate investments in the Southeast, in some of the most economically diverse and highest-growth metropolitan areas of the United States. We identify value-add opportunities while recognizing risk in an upfront approach to mitigate potential threats in cash flow so investors can continue to grow their wealth.

Want to learn more about us, visit our website. www.jaysinvestments.com or send us a message, we’re always happy to connect with others!

What matters most to you? Why?
FREEDOM. What matters to me has been something that has been changing over the past few years. Early on in my career if you asked me this, I would have said money matters the most (I, unfortunately, didn’t have any.). Money still matters and is important, but the focus is not only on this. As I continue to have more experience in my career and build our team, the thing that matters the most is having freedom with my time. Early on, I used to have to work 100+ hour weeks, juggling my family, corporate career, real estate, investors, etc. Today, I’m able to pull it back a notch and focus on the items that truly matter to me.

When I was first starting my company I was focused on working IN the business, working on acquisitions, property management, asset management, and just the day to day struggles and my wife, Kruti, (much smarter than me), told me after a certain point you’re going to want to start focusing on working ON the business so you’re able to scale and be able to finally take a vacation without the constant pressure.  This came with having the right processes in place and hiring the right support staff for all the day to day operations, so the managing partners are able to focus on capital raising, deal flow, and items that will help scale the company. Having freedom with my time, I’m able to not only concentrate on core areas of the business but also be able to take some time to relax and enjoy what we’ve been working to build over the last 10 years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jaysinvestments.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apurva.shah92/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apurva.shah.9279/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apurva-shah-15794271/