Ken Doble joins host Adrian Danila on Multifamily Chronicles to share lessons from a career that ran from a 24 unit Class C complex in Conyers, Georgia to an operation with more than 700 employees across 11 states and $350 million in development. He recounts teaching himself accounting on the job, and once crawling under a building to cut a $200,000 repair down to $10,000 by catching a contractor over-scoping the work. He co-founded QR Capital in a basement during the 2008 crash, closed one of only four Atlanta transactions in 2009, and eventually bought and sold close to 10,000 apartments. Borrowing Charlie Munger's inversion, Ken flips management questions to expose what kills performance: not answering the phone, never returning calls, faking delegation, hiring outsiders over internal promotions, and tolerating effective but toxic people. He reads the current market, negative leverage with debt over 6.4% against five caps and a roughly 20% value decline, and covers rent control, hiring, training with testing, culture built from the top, and a closing case for stoicism and compounding.
Media · Multifamily Chronicles
Masterclass in Mismanagement: What NOT to Do
What they cover
- From a 24 unit Class C complex in Conyers to 700-plus employees in 11 states
- Teaching himself accounting and cutting a $200K repair to $10K under a building
- Founding QR Capital in a basement and closing a 2009 Atlanta deal
- Reading today's market: negative leverage, five caps, a 20% value drop
- Why rent control and pricing-software crackdowns backfire
- Inversion: flipping 'how do I lease more' into 'how do I lease nothing'
- The 'no rule' on effective but toxic high performers
- Real delegation, promoting from within, and cross-training
- Throwing out 500 pages of SOPs for 60 pages of common sense
- Training without testing, culture from the top, and stoicism
In Ken's words
Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better. Often in life it's your skills that are lacking, and that's what we see again and again.
You can read all the books about swimming you want, but until you jump in the pool, you don't know how to swim.
How do I make sure my leasing staff leases nothing? Number one, don't answer the telephone. Number two, don't call anybody back. Then flip it, and make sure you're not doing that stuff.
My best hires have always, always been people I've promoted. You want to upset people? Go outside and hire all your promotions from the outside.
Training without testing is worthless.
Drop me in any property in the world and I can look at it through a lens and tell you, more than likely, the basics are not being done.