Multifamily Real Estate Done Right: Ethics, Returns, and Transparency with Hamilton Point

If you’re interested in multifamily real estate investing with a manager who truly does things differently, this one’s worth your time! There are HUNDREDS of multifamily (apts) investors out there, but this one stands out.

Matt Incitti from Hamilton Point joins us to share what makes Hamilton Point special. Key takeaways:

• Ethics and Alignment Matter
  Hamilton Point stands out in the crowded multifamily space for their strong ethical track record and investment alignment with investors. The founders and team invest alongside clients—on the same terms—which means their interests are directly aligned with investor outcomes.

• Disciplined, Nimble Strategy
  Instead of chasing huge fund sizes, Hamilton Point maintains disciplined fund growth and prioritizes quality over quantity. Matt shared that their current focus is on buying newer multifamily properties from distressed builders—adapting to market cycles rather than forcing growth, which has helped them consistently deliver solid performance.

• Clear Communication & Operational Excellence
  Transparency and communication are big differentiators. Investors receive quarterly updates and timely tax documents—something that’s surprisingly rare in the private equity space. Hamilton Point’s focus on reporting, responsiveness, and investor experience helps build long-term trust.

Links:

If you’re exploring alternative investments, it’s crucial to work with partners who have a proven, ethical approach—and who treat your money like their own. Contact Hamilton Point - www.hamiltonpointinv.com

• Transcript

  Introduction to the Unconventional Investor Podcast

  Welcome to the Unconventional Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Moses, certified financial planner, licensed realtor, and founder of ME Financial. If you're an accredited investor feeling overwhelmed by managing your portfolio and looking for alternative investment strategies that go beyond the traditional stock market, you're in the right place.

  Let's head into today's episode so you can start taking control of your financial future.

  Overview of Multifamily Investments

  Hello everyone and thank you so much for tuning in. Today we are going to be talking about a multifamily investment and I'm having them on here for a special reason because right now in the industry you could throw a rock or whatever that saying is, and you will hit someone that is doing multifamily, which is apartment.

  We in any city that you're in, you are gonna see what these huge apartment buildings going up because we are having some housing issues as everybody knows. But I am having Hamilton point on today because they really stood out when I went to a conference and when we had our little discussions when it's basically when everybody leaves and then we can talk about them behind their back, even though they know that we're doing it.

  Hamilton Point had tons of people from the audience. Stand up and tell everyone how ethical they were, and I'll get into the details, but they had nothing but really great things to say about them. So I actually reached out to Hamilton Point so that I could get on their platform and and all of that.

  Long story short, today to talk about Hamilton Point, we have Matt Incitti. To talk to us and he is the Vice President of Sales and marketing for Hamilton Point Investments where he is responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with registered investment advisors like myself and family offices.

  Hamilton Point Investments is a realist. State private equity investment company that owns and manages multi-family apartments, and it was founded in 2009 and it has acquired more than 150 properties and over $3.8 billion since inception. So Matt, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Michelle.

  Appreciate the kind words. Yes. As I was saying, you guys do multifamily, so why don't we just start out with kind of an overview of what you guys do and anything that makes you stand out from the crowd. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. Yeah, we're a little bit different than a lot of multi-family managers out there.

  Certainly. Most folks would say that, but we're different in, first off, where our headquarters is, where home office, home base is an old Lime Connecticut, a small kind of seaboard town on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut. There's just a several office buildings and we own one of 'em. It's a little bit unique in that nature.

  Started as you mentioned in oh nine by Matt Sharp and Dave Kelsey, who started investing in their own accounts and then ultimately formed this, Hamilton Point Investments in 2 0 0 9. What also makes us a bit unique and Stand Out is our track record. We've been doing this since oh nine in a series of funds starting with No Surprise Fund one launched in 2010.

  We're now in fund 14, and we have a lot of folks that continue to work with us because of the things we've been able to do. Performance, as you mentioned, ethics, et cetera, operations, and just a pleasure to work with is what I've heard. That's also what people said. Yes. A pleasure to work with.

  So are you the service business, right? You are. So are you guys building the apartments from the ground up or are you buying them distressed or what is. The main focus? Absolutely. Great question. So we are not builders developers but we are vertically integrated in the sense that we have our own property management, Hamilton Point, property management.

  So we are buying resale and ultimately doing some value add. In other words, fixing 'em up if necessary. Over our history 15 plus years, naturally there's been different iterations of our funds and different opportunities at different points in the cycle. So some funds have been more heavy value add, which means just essentially, larger projects, others are more light value add and just fixing.

  Cosmetic things and perhaps ripping out the carpet and painting the walls and increasing rents if we can. What we are seeing today fund 14 and just in the general market sense. Is opportunities to buy from, we call it distressed sellers. So these are builders who've been building, developing over the last couple of years.

  It takes several years to permit these properties, these assets, and then ultimately about two years, give or take, to build a conventional, multifamily suburban asset. And then ultimately there's leasing up and trying to bring in renters in a very different environment than when they started building.

  So there's a lot of supply in, in markets. And then also as it's been well documented, the capital markets is different, right? Interest rates have virtually doubled since that time. A lot of them do have, variable rate construction loans. And so now they're stressing out because they've got some high rates that they need to pay.

  That's exactly right. Yep. And it's interesting, so you're trying to bring in tenants all while you have these looming debt payments, and you're looking for ultimately some permanent fixed financing, right? From agency financing, we call it, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Which you need to be stabilized which means you need to be at least at 90% occupancy.

  To obtain that type of financing, generally speaking, so you know, if it's taking longer to lease up, they can't get to that point and therefore there's that kind of unknown of what they're gonna pay under their debt. So they're looking to unload. They've made a development fee throughout and they've made a lot of money and they've done very well over the last several years because there is a lot of demand for multifamily, which continues to occur.

  So and a lot of times they'll come to you when they haven't had it up to 90% leased. But it's, it might be done exactly right. Okay. Yep. So we'll buy it. Generally we're looking at new builds 23, 24, again, for this iteration, what this market opportunity presents itself and perhaps put on a, some bridge financing, right?

  So something in lieu of getting to stabilization, bringing enough tenants in. And a lot of that is just to do with some timing. We think that. It's essentially an opportunity to potentially take advantage of distressed sellers, but also robust demand. We're seeing record demand and terminology in the space is absorption, so essentially renters renting departments.

  And ultimately we expect that to continue because. There is still supply issues despite the fact that there's been significant supply in these markets. We're still underserved. And you mentioned it, in your opening comments, the affordability, right? Renting is significantly cheaper than owning.

  Mortgage rates and otherwise. We see the opportunity continue. Yeah. And so are you saying some of your other funds have been more distressed properties and so right now what you're seeing is that you're buying new builds from the builders, basically. And that's the opportunity right now.

  But maybe fund 10 was more about, distressed properties or it the flavor changes. Absolutely right. Okay. Yeah, so our first couple of funds, think about the vintages, like 2010 was our first fund really coming out of the global financial system. Yeah, you probably had a lot. Yeah, a lot of distressed.

  Exactly right. So those were distressed assets, right? Receivership, bankruptcy, et cetera. And then it shifted to a more of a value add approach. Buying 20, 30-year-old product or assets and doing a value add component, fixing 'em up, and then charging, of course, according rent or appropriate rents.

  Excuse me. Okay. That's just changed. And like I said, it's just been in this fun kind of format and we've been comfortable. And where, what locations are you guys normally purchasing your properties? Yeah, we've been, national just domestic, no international exposure. But specifically today we're looking at, we look at high growth markets, no surprise, but high population growth, high job growth, employment growth in the south, southeastern markets primarily, or the Sunbelt.

  Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, we see some opportunity. It's also where there's been a lot of building, but obviously we can take advantage of that. Okay. And I feel like that's where, that's where everybody's moving. So if you guys listen to the podcast, it's almost what everybody says about housing is the Sunbelt states.

  It's 'cause where every, that's where everybody is moving. I'll be interested to see if that changes in the future. If it just gets too. Full or something for people, 'cause I know that's why I moved to Arizona was it was leading in April and I was like, I just can't do this anymore. So I moved out.

  Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So is how long do your funds normally is, has this fund been open for a while? Do you normally keep 'em open for a couple years? What's the kind of timeline on things? Yeah, absolutely. Obviously all this is potentially subject to change, but typically we will raise one fund in about one year.

  Okay. Then the expectation after the fundraising is four to six years for an exit. Historically we've been able to do it actually within five years. All of our full cycle funds, we call it, essentially investors put money to work. We go out and buy apartments. And then we ultimately deliver that money plus a preferred return, plus essentially extra returns and income back to investors.

  And we've been able to do that in that timeframe. And I think that's important. You guys you don't realize that a lot of people will say four to six years and then it ends up being 10 because of COVID and like it. It really is important when you're looking at people that are, you're going to be investing with, have they been able to actually close their fund?

  Because there's a lot of funds out there where it's like they've got this one piece of real estate that they just can't get rid of, or they don't know what to, there's some issue with it. And so then the fund has. To stay open and it, you have to do lots of fees of lawyers' fees and CPA fees, all of that to keep this thing open and it really erodes your return.

  And so having people that have actually had a track record and closing the funds and obviously so that you can see what return they've made, but re the actual closing of the fund has become more and more important to me anyway, as the years have gone on. So very well said. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

  The ability to raise capital, do what you say you're gonna do, and then ultimately to your point Yeah. Exit. Yeah. And not have it drag out forever. 'cause I do have a couple that are dragging out forever and my clients are like, what is going on? I'm like, I know it was COVID and now we got these interest rates and now we got terrorists.

  And it's just yeah. Yeah. So not sometimes, not some good situations. Okay.

  Fund Performance and Returns

  So can you tell us a little bit about your historical returns that you've seen from some of the funds? Or do you I wouldn't, I don't know that I'd go back all the way to like 2008, but maybe in the last five years.

  Yeah, absolutely. So obviously past performance is not indicative of future results, but we do print in our private placement memorandum, the offering documents for the funds a. Specific to the current one and prior, last couple of funds, a 14% expected IRR internal rate of return. Again, that's the expectation we've delivered north of that.

  Historically we've delivered north of 18% weighted IRRs for all of our full cycle offerings. Start to finish, as I mentioned. So we've done well, and certainly expect that to, to continue. But we do print the expected IRRs. We do also pay some income as well, and that does bake into that.

  So there is some current income. So you got some current income that people can expect as the, as when they're invested. And then they'll get obviously large chunks as the properties are sold. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So what we'll do is typically current fund and last couple, as I mentioned earlier, eight to 12 apartments in a particular fund.

  We're looking at. 200 million, eight to 12 apartment communities buying about 400, four $50 million of real estate all in with leverage. And then ultimately paying income along the way that's paid quarterly. And then of course looking to, sell those assets along the way so it'll be special cash distributions, if and when we sell those assets.

  And that'll be delivered back to the investors in the form of, payments as you mentioned, lump sum. And then ultimately. Okay. We hope to disolve it. And do you have a preferred return or is it just your, you've, your what am I trying Your 14% IRR we do, yeah, we do. Okay. We have a single hurdle, so we have a preferred return of 6%.

  Okay. So at 6% clients. Should expect that. And then after that, any, appreciate or any profits, excuse me, above that 6% return for the investor are split 75% to the investor, 25% to Hamilton Point. So that incentivizes us, of course, to produce. Real results. And then ultimately it gives the investors the opportunity to, participate in that as well.

  And then of course realize those gains. And this is another reason that I called you, is because in the closed door session what we talk about a lot is returns obviously, but the management of it and the management of Hamilton Point invests alongside their investors in all of the funds, correct.

  That is correct. Yeah. And so their interests are very much aligned with the investors. And you guys know how much I talk about this. I talk about this all the time, Matt, if you listen to my podcast. That I really think that there needs to be some skin in the game with. Some of the managers. And so Hamilton Point stood out in the fees that they charge in that, that sometimes they will forego charging a fee or they'll get their money in another way so that the investor as whole or that they're making a better rate of return and they're also invested alongside the investor.

  So they really stand out in their integrity in. Making sure that the investor is happy, that they're whole and that they're making a good rate of return, was the way that it was put in the meeting. Can you ex, do you wanna expand on that at all? Absolutely. Very well said. Are you just happy that people are talking behind your back about those nice things?

  I, yes. I'm very happy to hear that. Especially in that light. No it's true. They invest Matt Sharp and Dave Kelsey, the principals managing principals, co-founders Hamilton Point, invest alongside at the same terms as friends and family. So they're, paying the same fees as friends and family employees, et cetera.

  And then ultimately they are incentivized on the preferred return. And you even mentioned other fees, perhaps. Not for this, but it's there. Certain fees are subordinate to an investor's return and things like that. And the last point I'd make is it's been consistent with our funds.

  These funds do have fees, right? Of course. They're professionally managed of course, but at the same time we do, market them, at market or below market in fees. And I think we've been rewarded for that with re repeat, investors and people, folks that. I guess speak highly of us, so that's great to hear.

  And you guys seem to stay in your lane. 'Cause most of the time, and we were talking before we got started, but most of the time what will happen is that people have success with one fund. And then they'll say, okay, we raised, I don't, our first one was only 10 million, and so now we're gonna go to 15, then we're gonna go 25 and they'll just continue to go higher and higher.

  And Hamilton point, you guys stay in your lane, as in you're keeping your funds about the same. Size correct. So that you can deploy it and you're not having to deploy it into things that are bad investments. Absolutely. That is something that, could get you in trouble potentially.

  Yes. I appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah. We've stuck to our, comfortable size, how much money can do we feel comfortable putting to work in a given year. Also, of course, how much money we can raise within a given period of time. So we have that track record of being able to do that.

  And I think that has a lot to do with just, with the success we've had. Yeah it's potentially easier, easy to go out and say we've had success doing this, let's. Let's grow the size of the offerings. Let's do, an evergreen structure. Nothing wrong with that at all.

  It's just that's not what Hamilton Point, I always say, not better or worse, just different. What Hamilton Point is comfortable doing and has done well, in my opinion, it is better. You can be all. It's not better or worse. It, because I think if you're gonna make more, I like the way that you guys are doing it because from my perspective is that the ones, the big behemoth.

  That have gotten so big, the return is not there. 'cause there's so many cooks in the kitchen and they are not able to just deploy it into smart investments. They have to deploy the money or they're not gonna make anything. And so it's not always the best investments. And so I think with your size and what you guys are doing, it's.

  Sometimes the return is higher. This is just from my experience, I'm not saying that yours is definitely, but from my experience is when you constrain that, then you're able to make smart investments and then their return is higher. That's my experience. No, absolutely. So I know you're not legally able to say a bunch of stuff, but I'll give my little 2 cents in there about things.

  I can tell you. We do focus on this particular deal. We do a ton of due diligence. We obviously have a reputation in the market with sellers and lenders. We have investment memos that we publish. We're not buying port, to your point. We're not raising so much money where we have to.

  Put money to work because we're not ing anything on it. And then buying portfolios and things of that nature is just not what we're, we tend to do. And that's certainly the yeah, you're out there finding deals. And that is another thing that I like too, is because you do, on your website it says you do manufactured housing and hotels, but that's not the main thing that you do.

  It's just. That those deals happened to come up and they were great deals. And so you pivoted into those great deals. And so this is my jam is being able to do those types of things. And I think that's what most people want, is they want people that are managing their money as if they would do it.

  When a good deal comes along hey, this isn't normally what we do, but we do know how to do this hotel. Whatever that particular investment happens to be. So I really respect that Also. Absolutely. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. We want folks to be with us for the long run and have an experience with us and, everything from performance and, quarterly reports that we publish and getting the tax documents out on time, March 15th every year, bar none since inception.

  That operational stuff that we it's important have, get, right? Yeah. It's important. Yeah. Yeah. And I've talked about this before too, as I have some investments. They will literally send an email once a year for a development deal with just a couple pictures and it's you don't even know if they're alive sometimes, or, and so you it, and it doesn't make sense to me because you have these investors and they're already warm leads.

  Why wouldn't you want them to just reinvest with you? So give them a good rate of return a great communication. And then they'll easily want to reinvest with you. That's my opinion and how I would see the marketing of it, but that's not how everybody does things. So it's good to hear that you guys do that.

  Okay.

  Investment Details and Closing Remarks

  And so can we just go over, wrap it up with a little, so your minimums or it's for accredited investors, and are there any other details that we need to know about the fund? Correct. Yeah. Credit investors, it's a regulation D offering private placement. There is no liquidity of a small kind of percentage, but virtually, for conversation purposes, there is no liquidity.

  So four to six years is the expected timeframe of it with current income along the way, paid quarterly. We, we have it's the fund 14 is the current fund in the marketplace. We started raising money toward the tail end of last summer. We expect to be wrapped up by late part of this summer.

  And you'll take IRA do you do IRA money. And then the minimum is 50,000, correct? Yes. Okay. Yeah. See, I'm sorry, you did ask that question. $50,000 minimum investment for for 10 units. They're at 5,000 a unit. And then ultimately, it's, it's every two weeks we take in new investments.

  Okay. All right. Wonderful. You guys, I hope you learned something about Hamilton Point and even just multifamily in general. Because there's lots of different funds that do multifamily but they obviously operate very differently. And I know it can get overwhelming and that's why I'm here, hopefully as.

  To find some diamonds in the rough. So Matt, thank you so much for being on. I always love talking to you. You're a very nice guy and you put this in great layman's terms for my listeners. I appreciate it. So thanks for being on and you guys, if you have any questions, I'm gonna have all the Hamilton points information in the show notes.

  You can always call me. You can reach out to Matt, he's on their website. And let us know if you have any questions. So thank you so much for being on. Thank you for listening, and I hope you guys have a wonderful day. Thank you for listening to the Unconventional Investor Podcast. I hope you feel more confident in how you can grow your wealth using the strategies I shared in this episode.

  If you're ready to take the next step in diversifying your portfolio outside the stock market with alternative investments, head to me financial.net/contact us to book a 15 minute consult call with me. Let's discuss how we can work together to achieve your financial goals. Until then, I'll see you on the next episode.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any financial decisions. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not responsible for any actions taken based on the information presented.