Property Profits Real Estate Podcast

What changes when an apartment is rented one bedroom at a time instead of one unit at a time?

For Zach Feldman, that is one of the big ideas behind a student housing portfolio that has grown to thousands of beds across the country.

Expanded Description

Zach’s firm has built more than 5,000 student housing beds and currently owns and operates about 4,300, with another 1,000 under construction.

He explains how purpose built student housing differs from traditional multifamily. Residents sign individual bedroom leases, units come fully furnished, and the best locations are close enough to campus that students can walk there in minutes.

Zach also explains why the business is not easy. Development approvals are becoming more costly and difficult. A soft cost package that may once have cost around $50,000 can now reach $500,000 or even $1 million before the developer knows whether a project will move ahead.

He also shares how annual turnover and preleasing affect the business, including why leasing can begin a full year before a building opens.

Key Topics and Takeaways

Why student housing is rented by the bed

How four bedroom units change the revenue per square foot

Why pedestrian access to campus matters

How large institutional buyers participate in student housing

Why entitlement costs have become a major barrier

How student housing can be preleased before construction is complete

Guest Information

Zach Feldman is a student housing developer and owner operator. His firm has built more than 5,000 student housing beds across markets ranging from upstate New York to Arizona.

Email: gf@aptitudere.com

Website: aptitudere.com

Call to Action

Zach invited anyone interested in discussing student housing, upcoming opportunities, or real estate in general to contact him directly.

Email: gf@aptitudere.com

Website: aptitudere.com

A single family rental was making Katrina Robinson about $200 a month in profit. After she started renting the same home by the bed, the numbers changed in a big way.

Katrina now operates three co living homes in San Antonio while living in California. Her residents often receive income through SSI, SSDI, or the VA and can handle their own daily activities. The homes provide housing only. Katrina and her company do not provide personal care services.

She explains how a typical four bedroom property can work, why she brought in an operations manager after her second home, and why that manager is paid based on occupied beds.

Katrina also talks about the harder parts of the business. Rent collection needs to stay inside the system. Maintenance reserves matter. Vacancies can quietly become expensive. At one point, six empty beds represented about $4,000 in lost monthly revenue.

Key topics and takeaways:

Why Katrina rents rooms and beds instead of the whole home

The numbers behind an eight bed shared home

Why she recommends at least four bedrooms

How an operations manager helps keep the homes running

House rules that reduce resident conflict

Why cameras are used in common areas

How Katrina builds referral relationships with caseworkers and social workers

Why she reviews the business numbers every Monday during her CEO hour

Guest information:

Katrina E. Robinson operates three co living homes in San Antonio, Texas, while living in the Los Angeles area. She also teaches other property owners how to use this housing model.

Website: co-livingbusiness.com

Tools and platforms mentioned:

RentReady

PadSplit

Call to action:

Katrina is looking to connect with people who already own single family rentals, especially properties with at least four bedrooms that may only be producing a few hundred dollars in monthly profit.

Visit co-livingbusiness.com to connect with Katrina and discuss whether that property could be changed to a co living home.

Real estate does not have to produce a home run every time to make sense.

For Dipesh Sitaram, years of investing across different real estate sectors led him back to the field he understood best: healthcare.

Dipesh has spent 20 years in healthcare. That experience gave him a close look at how practices and surgery centers operate, what their real estate needs look like, and why many healthcare tenants are willing to sign longer leases.

He tells Dave that the COVID period became a real litmus test for him. While he watched other areas of real estate struggle, his experience in healthcare looked different. Healthcare tenants kept paying rent and business carried on.

That helped shape a simple philosophy: real estate is a long game.

Dipesh is not focused on speculative deals that need huge appreciation in a short time. His preference is the kind of steady approach he describes as hitting doubles rather than expecting a home run every time.

He also walks through one of his favorite properties, a 20,000 square foot Midwest surgery center. After revitalizing the building, the tenants saw enough value in the improvements to enter into a long term lease. The property remains in the portfolio.

In This Conversation

Why Dipesh focuses on healthcare and healthcare adjacent real estate

What his experience in hospitality, multifamily, and condos taught him

Why COVID became his personal test for real estate stability

How revitalizing a surgery center helped strengthen the tenant relationship

Why higher interest rates, lower tenancy, and higher operating costs created problems in multifamily

Why investors should study both the property and the operator

Why subject matter expertise, experience, and a clear exit plan matter to Dipesh

About Dipesh Sitaram
Dipesh Sitaram has spent 20 years in healthcare and brings that operating experience into real estate. His current holdings are mainly specialty surgery centers, with investments concentrated in the Midwest and Central Texas.

He describes his approach simply: slow and steady wins the race.

Google Ads may look familiar on the surface, but Dan Barrett says the game underneath has changed.

Keywords and clever ad copy matter less than many investors think. The bigger opportunity is giving Google better data about which leads are actually worth pursuing.

Expanded Description
Dan Barrett works with real estate investors through AdWords Nerds, with most of his clients focused on motivated sellers.

He explains how Google Ads has moved from a world of manual bidding and detailed keyword control into a system driven much more by algorithms. Instead of spending most of the time adjusting bids, Dan focuses on the full lead funnel.

That includes the landing page, CRM connection, lead quality, appointments, and the information that gets sent back to Google.

Dan also explains why investors may choose between a smaller number of higher quality leads or a larger number of lower cost leads. Neither approach is automatically right. The best setup depends on the market, the investor's systems, and how much lead volume the business can handle.

Key Topics and Takeaways

Why Google Ads now depends heavily on algorithm training

Why keywords and ad copy have less control than they once did

How landing page speed and mobile performance affect results

The difference between a high quality strategy and a high volume strategy

Why Dan may track appointments or qualified leads instead of every lead

How conversion rates can change the cost of a lead

Why Google Ads should not be the only marketing channel in the business

Guest Information
Dan Barrett works with AdWords Nerds and has spent about 16 years focused on Google Ads for real estate investors.

Website: AdWordsNerds.com

Dan said the site includes free content, blog posts, podcasts, and an option to book a session with his team.

Call to Action
Visit AdWordsNerds.com to learn more, explore the free content, or book a session with the AdWords Nerds team.

Real estate conditions can look very different from one Ontario market to the next.

In this September 2026 update, Simi Mehta shares what she is seeing across her portfolio and why Pembroke has been especially strong for rental demand. She also explains why she is putting more attention on industrial units in Pickering.

Simi walks through how one of her joint ventures works using a 38-unit apartment building in Pembroke as an example. Four investors brought different amounts of capital into the project and received shares based on what they invested. After the property was renovated and refinanced, the investors received their original capital back plus profit while remaining invested in the property.

She also shares an update on a Cornwall property that had two commercial units and a former gym. Simi and her team worked with the City of Cornwall to turn the gym space into six apartments. The project is nearing completion, with leasing and refinancing planned as the next steps.

In this episode, Simi discusses:

Why she looks beyond the GTA for deals
• The different rental conditions she is seeing in Pembroke and Kitchener
• Her current mix of single-family homes, multiplexes, and industrial units
• Industrial units in Pickering starting at $125,000
• How her 38-unit Pembroke joint venture was structured
• The difference between a joint venture investment and private lending in her business
• The Cornwall conversion from a gym to six residential units
• Her recent spiritual retreat and what she learned about acceptance and time

To connect with Simi, she prefers phone calls or text messages at 647-868-3955. She can also be reached at investwithsimi@gmail.com.