Richard Joseph Spinelli

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate Photo by Alonso Angulo on Unsplash Move in week at a five bedroom house on a Belmont block begins with a rented van double parked out front and a household next door that was on the block long before any student arrived. I am Richard Joseph Spinelli, cofounder of Sandhills Real Estate, and this is written for anyone who runs student housing on a residential street, where the neighbors turn out to be part of the job. Since 2022 we have been buying and renovating near Fordham University and its Rose Hill campus, and all 13 of our assets stand on Belmont Avenue, Lorillard Place, Bathgate Avenue or the streets just around them. None of those buildings stands alone. Every one of them shares a wall, a stretch of sidewalk or a curb with somebody who never signed anything with us. What move in week looks like from the house next door Saturday is the van. Five families arrive in one day, each with its own car, and for most of the afternoon...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate A first walkthrough of a building I might buy starts in the cellar with a flashlight and ends on the roof, and the apartments in between get the least of my attention. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli, and since 2022 my company has been buying, renovating and operating student housing within a few blocks of the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. If you buy old housing stock anywhere, the order of that walk is the part worth taking. The rooms are what everyone wants to talk about on a first visit. They are also the part of the building I can change. The roof and the cellar are the two places that decide whether the building is worth owning at all, and neither one negotiates. The Roof Decides How Much Time a Buyer Actually Has Water is patient and it travels. A roof that has been failing quietly for a few winters does not announce itself on the top floor, it announces itself years later in a wall two floors down, in plaster that keeps ...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate A boiler in one of our Belmont buildings started short cycling on a cold Tuesday night, and the first useful question anyone asked was when it had last been serviced. Three of us had an opinion and none of us had a record. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli, I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate in 2020, and we own and operate 13 student housing assets and 27 units within a few blocks of the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. This is for the operator running a handful of buildings with a small team, the kind of company where the founders still answer the phone. At that size almost nothing is written down, because almost nothing has needed to be. I want to argue that the building history is the one exception, and that it is worth writing down long before the portfolio is big enough to justify a system. A Small Portfolio Keeps Its Building History in People Our properties sit on and around Belmont Avenue, Lorillard Place and Bathgate Avenue,...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate The last walkthrough of the year happens in a five bedroom apartment that has been lived in hard since September, with the boxes already carried down and the windows open to air it out. Four of the five residents are graduating in a few weeks and will never rent from anybody in this neighborhood again. I am Richard Joseph Spinelli, and I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate, which buys, renovates and operates student housing around the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University in the Bronx. This is written for operators and small landlords who run student housing in a college market, and for anyone who has to decide in June what a worn apartment is going to cost the people who lived in it. The hour I am describing is short, it is unglamorous, and almost nothing in the operating year pushes an owner to do it well. The Move Out Walkthrough Is Easy to Underinvest In Every other piece of the student housing year pays you back in something...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate Five students stood in the living room of a four bedroom apartment on Lorillard Place, and I stepped back out to the sidewalk and let them talk. When I came back in they had already decided, and one of them was asking how soon they could sign. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli and I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate, a student housing owner and operator working the blocks around Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. This one is for anyone who shows apartments to groups rather than to individuals, and who has noticed that the showing which felt best is not always the showing that converts. A group behaves as one customer carrying five opinions rather than as five customers standing next to each other. It reaches its decision in a way that has very little to do with how well the apartment was presented. Student Groups Decide Together and They Decide Fast Watch a group move through a unit and you will see the decision...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate A new hire started on a Tuesday and I did not hand them a map. I handed them a route, a loop that begins on Belmont Avenue, turns onto Lorillard Place and finishes on Bathgate Avenue, and by noon they had stood outside every door we own. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli and I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate in 2020, a student housing owner and operator that buys, renovates and manages housing around the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University. This is written for operators running student housing in other college markets, and for small landlords deciding whether concentration is worth the risk that comes with it. Almost every argument for density is an argument about maintenance speed or leasing. The one I want to make is about hiring, and it is the one most operators never think to count. A Walkable Student Housing Portfolio Is Learnable on Foot We own 13 student housing assets and 27 units, home to more than 100 students, and we...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate It rained hard overnight, the steady kind that keeps going long after you stop noticing it, and by six in the morning I was on a cellar stair on Belmont Avenue with a flashlight. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli, I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate, and every building we own sits within a few blocks of Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. This is written for operators and small landlords who have to answer a weather event with a small team, and for anyone weighing whether a tightly drawn map is worth what it costs. Scattered Buildings Turn Weather Into a Routing Problem An operator with buildings spread across three or four neighborhoods spends the first hour of a storm deciding where to drive. That hour is not diagnosis and it is not repair. It is triage performed with almost no information, because nobody has laid eyes on any of the buildings yet. The forecast from the National Weather Service office that ...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate A group of five stood on the sidewalk on Lorillard Place in March asking about an apartment that had been signed two days earlier. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli, and I cofounded Sandhills Real Estate in 2020, a student housing owner and operator that buys, renovates and manages off campus housing around Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. Three doors down there was another unit that fit them, and the conversation moved there without anybody getting into a car. That short walk is the whole argument of this piece. It is written for operators running a handful of buildings in a college market who are deciding whether to spread out or press in. Concentration Turns Separate Buildings Into One Leasing Inventory Sandhills has 13 assets and 27 units housing more than 100 students, and they sit on and around Belmont Avenue, Lorillard Place and Bathgate Avenue in Belmont. On a spreadsheet those are 13 buildings with ...

By Richard Joseph Spinelli, Sandhills Real Estate Photo by Josh Lemmon on Unsplash A plumber walked into a fourth basement on the same block last winter and knew, before anyone said anything, which of the two shutoffs on the wall was the one that actually worked. He had been in the three houses before it. Nobody had to explain the building to him. My name is Richard Joseph Spinelli. I am the cofounder of Sandhills Real Estate, a student housing owner and operator working around Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx, where we run 13 assets and 27 units housing more than 100 students, all of it inside a few blocks of Belmont. This is written for anyone running a handful of older buildings who is still calling whoever is available. The argument is that concentration does something to your repair work that has nothing to do with how fast you can drive. A Trade Who Knows the Building Diagnoses Faster Most of the time a repair takes is not repair. It is orientatio...