Luke Rentz

ORU Graduate, Tulsa Realtor, Business Consultant

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@alex_beltran_ @MrJonesSTRs Why?

[StripMallGuy @realEstateTrent]

We hired a 27-year-old associate a few months ago, and he uses Claude Cowork all day.

I don't have the words to describe what is happening to our productivity.

Things that would have taken months are now getting done in hours - it's changing the entire way we run our business!

[Will Fry @BuySellSMB]

Private equity firms everywhere don't want you to know this one simple trick

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@fortworthchris Do you have a recommendation on where to start to going down this rabbit hole?

[The Real Estate God @TheRealEstateG6]

If you’re not used to selling it can be daunting to raise capital

I created a 4-step sales process that you can use when selling to investors

The basic structure is this:

Story of the property ---> background of the deal ---> merits of the deal ---> actual numbers

// Story of the Property //

You want to start out talking about the history of the property or the history of the area. If property doesn’t have an interesting history or the surrounding area doesn’t have an interesting history, skip to step 2 and tell the story of how you found the deal or how you came up with the overarching acquisition strategy

An example of a story would be something like this “The property was built in 1901 by renowned architect John Smith, who built several other high-profile buildings in the city. It started off as a glass- making factory in the early 1900s, but was converted into an automobile factory in 1943 to help the United States war production capabilities during WWII

After WWII, the property survived the notorious 1975 fire and was one of 15 buildings in the city to not burn down

More recently, it’s been owned by an absentee owner who used it as storage space

We plan on bringing this building full circle and renovating the building back into a warehouse to restore it to its former glory.”

How much better does this sound than, “The property is 10,000 SF, has 5 tenants and has floor to ceiling glass windows”.

When you tell a story, people instantly have a connection to it. It doesn’t become “just another deal”. It becomes a special deal, an opportunity to become a part of something

// Background of the Deal //

This part is very important. Unlike the “story of the property” portion of your sales process, this section doesn’t focus on the entire history of the deal, just the history of your interaction with it

You want to emphasize the fact that you’re getting a “deal” on the property. That can come in the form of a distressed seller, an off-market deal process or a unique transaction edge. An example of what not to do would be: “We found this deal through a traditional, fully marketed process”.

Boring and indicates that your investor is about to be ripped off. Investors want to hear your story and they want the deal to be unique, not just another run of the mill deal.

Your story should sound something like this instead: “The seller is distressed due to a cash crunch in his other businesses and needs liquidity

Due to this cash crunch, the seller needs to move quickly, which meant that they didn’t have time for a fully marketed process, allowing us to pick up the deal off-market”. Why is this so much better? It stresses a few things:

1. The seller is under distress, which (in your investor’s mind) indicates you’re getting the property for a discount

2. Since the seller needs to move quickly, he wasn’t able to go through an entire marketing process. A fully marketed process indicates an “efficient market” since every firm can get their eyes on the deal and make a bid on it. An off-market deal process indicates an “inefficient market”. There are far more opportunities to make money in an inefficient market, and your investors know that

3. It also implies that your firm has a unique edge in the transaction, since there’s only a small pool of firms who can move quickly enough to close on a deal that has an accelerated timeline.

Those are the main points you want to emphasize (you should also be doing deals where you have those "edges" anyway)

Notice how in all of these examples, there's a unique draw to the transaction that indicates to the investor that there’s a greater than normal chance to make an outsized return

That's the most effective way to sell a deal

// Merits //

These items shouldn’t be directly quantifiable

Examples include happenings in the surrounding area, (“There’s a massive development going on next door by Blackstone - Imagine how high that will push rents 2 years from now when it’s completed”), specific qualities of the deal (“the deal has xx amount of parking spots, which is more than comparable properties”), specific qualities of the location (“There’s a Whole Foods next door which will help to attract tenants”), and specific qualities of the property (“the property is historic, etc.)

Actual Numbers

Finally, now is when you can talk about the actual numbers (cash-on-cash, IRR, etc.).Throughout this entire process, you need to be thinking about who your listener is. Realize that every deal has different strengths and every investor has different deal qualities they’re looking for

If the investor is a private equity firm, you need to be focused on presenting to them metrics like IRR and return on cost. That’s because they care about getting in, adding value, and getting out quickly. While you want to talk about deal safety, you want to emphasize the upside far more when raising money from a PE firm.

If it’s a pension fund, you need to be focused on presenting to them metrics like cash-on-cash. That’s because pension funds care about in-place cashflow and the safety of the deal (remember, pension funds are handling retirement accounts for working class people)

Emphasize things like location, the credit of the tenant or the longevity of the leases. Additionally, it may be prudent to approach the underwriting a little differently (lower leverage) to make the actual investment safer as well

If it’s a lender, you need to be even more focused on safety than you were with the pension fund

While most of you won’t be presenting to a private equity firm or a pension fund, these are all useful thought experiments

It’s more likely that you’ll be presenting to a friend or member of your family. That's fine, you just translate their personality/risk preference to either PE firm or pension fund

If it’s a friend who’s a gambler (high-risk taker), you treat him like a private equity firm. If it’s an older, retired family member, you treat him like a pension fund/lender. It’s that simple

You get the idea

At no point do you lie about the deal. You simply selectively choose which facts to emphasize, dependent on which facts you think will resonate most with your audience

That's really it. The format of the presentation really doesn't matter much as long as it's crisp, clean and presentable

Even if you're "not a salesman", you have to learn how to sell if you want to be successful in this business - and telling a story is the best way to do that

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@bobbyfijan @moseskagan Tulsa 😊

[Chris Ramsey | SMB and R.E. @ChrisRamsey60]

Screw it, here’s our exact process for acquisitions no gatekeeping no secrets.

Cold calling -

We use Call Tools for our dialer.

Cold callers or acquisition team login here and dial.

Everything is tracked and recorded.

As mentioned it could be someone from our team that just cold calls or it could be someone that cold calls and underwrites and brings it to me which we call our acquisition specialists.

If it’s a hot lead the it goes right into Google chat but cold calling team has all specialists cell phone just in case time is of the essence.

We don’t need much information.

Unit count
Vacancy report
Estimate sqft on Google maps

After we have that information it goes to underwriting which only a specialist can do.

We add this information to Google sheets shared drive.

Once underwriting is done spreadsheets and also go to Follow up Boss which we use as a CRM.

The underwriting also comes directly to my email where I go over thoroughly and revise if needed.

Letters -

Add Personal touch.
I like ones with a family photo.

Add credibility.
You own other RE or businesses nearby.

Then it’s just a numbers game.

Brokers -

Broker relationships are key.

Build those relationships and make sure they know you are a player.

You will close fast.

Pay them.

We pay brokers for off market deals well.

Negotiate with them beforehand.

Could be anything 2.5%-7%

yes we have paid 7% on a homerun deal.

If the deal is good enough this percentage means nothing.

Also there is the question if they are getting a commission from the seller but we don’t really care about that either.

We have recently started using a similar process for businesses slightly more complicated but very similar.

Remember the one who finds the deal makes the rules!!!!

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@BarryRoland19 @realEstateTrent You just offer list price then.

[Tristen Palori | Commercial Real Estate @TristenPalori]

I just paid $200/month for an AI tool most people don't know exists.

After today, I'm never canceling.

It turned 5-6 hours of work into 45 minutes.

Here's 4 projects I used Perplexity's "Computer" mode for today as a Commercial Real Estate Broker:

(#4 is insane)

[Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja]

Paul Skenes, 100mph Fastball, 95mph Splinker, 85mph Sweeper & 88mph Changeup, 4 Pitch Overlay 😳

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@JustinEGiboney It's sad to see so many people defending this. It's really inappropriate, and if he didn't know it was there he should take it down and apologize.

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@sweatystartup Where / how did you hire her?

[The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox]

Tim Pool presents slowed-down footage “proving” the 37-year-old woman shot by ICE intended to “kill that ICE agent.”

“Watch the officer who has his gun drawn… You see his foot sliding? Yeah. He’s not taking a step. He’s being hit by the vehicle.”

“Were it not for the ice, which you can see on the ground, the vehicle would have just lurched forward and run this guy over.”

@Timcast

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@eyeseekthelight @gootecks @pipelineabuser Yes what's BHW?

[Kyle Mann @The_Kyle_Mann]

Looking for something you can play over and over with the family? Look no further. My most-played board games of 2025!

A🧵:

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@realEstateTrent If we can just get into the 5's that would be great 😃 (although this is more for residential)

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@SebMcKinnon Fantastic is the perfect word for this!

[Hannah K. Hayford ن @hkhayford]

“

If I am at that stake and lack love, Paul says, "I have wasted my time."

@KB_HGA

yes x amen ❤️‍🔥

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@MrJonesSTRs Giving a full button outfit to new parents is tantamount to torture!!

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@realEstateTrent As a homeowner, you'd have paid down a chunk of the mortgage plus had tax deductible interest payments the entire time. 150k for maintenance is pretty inflated for repairs, plus you didn't consider appreciation when you sell/ principal paid off..

[Luke Rentz @LukeRentz]

@realEstateTrent While I agree, You really shouldn't be buying a house that you're just going to live in for just a few years, especially when you're young, your math is pretty skewed. Comparable rent for 1M house is 5-7k. If you lived there for 5 years, conservatively you'd have paid 300k rent.