Mark Smith
Dwellynn is a real estate investment firm with a strong focus on Multifamily Syndication via acquisitions, repositioning, development, and management of affordable, yet quality, multifamily residential properties.
Tell us about yourself?
Living on 3 continents, I can definitely say that the United States is the best continent I have lived on. I have always worked to build a successful company but I was unsure what exactly I wanted to do.
Shortly after moving to the US, my wife and I quickly go into the system and had great jobs and living the American Dream. However, I felt that there was something more to do in life than just going to work and coming back home and repeat.
During this time, a friend of mine from the UK wanted me to help him with this business in the UK but there was a caveat he wanted me to fly to Dubai to meet with him.
I like to tell this story because I could declined that opportunity but am I so glad I didn’t.
After helping my friend re-org his business and flying back to the US, I was thinking to myself I could potentially do this same business in the US, but I did not know anything about Real Estate Investing.
Not know anything I went right in by learning online and reading a lot of books. However, the big change for me was getting a paid mentorship was a pivotal moment for me.
Building large apartment building can be a complex process so getting a mentor was definitely instrumental in getting me started in this line of work.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
I would tell myself to be stay layered focus on the goals and operationalize on the strategy of the firm.
What problem does your business solve?
Creating housing for our residents and building wealth for our investors.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Dwellynn was bring about by thinking of a business with unlimited potential and scale. In addition, I enjoy the opportunity to breath new live into an apartment community post acquisition.
The problem we are trying to solve is the affordability crisis we are facing in the US. many residents want beautiful spaces to live in and call home and sometimes this isn’t within reach for some of the resident.
At Dwellynn, we are trying to build affordable apartments for residents who are able to afford them.
What is your magic sauce?
We humanize the resident experience. At Dwellynn, we are trying to optimize the human-to-human interaction all through our firm from residents to partners and to vendors. This is what makes us unique.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Grow our portfolio strategically over the next 5 years across line of business and asset classes.
We want to achieve a state where our residents want to call our community home and love to live in our spaces.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Equity. We are able to raise capital for our deals.
However, as we scale to larger projects, the capital stack can be complex and the equity portion tend to be higher and sourcing for such equity can be challenging but we are working with new sources and hoping to fill that gap as we seal.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We are constantly looking for LP equity partners, passive investors and/or family offices who are looking to place capital in growth markets such as Texas.
