The operator's first question.
When I sold Posto Property Management at the end of 2024, what I took with me wasn't the financial outcome — it was a decade of running buildings.
The single most useful thing operating taught me is that the questions an underwriter asks and the questions an operator asks are different. An underwriter asks: what's the in-place NOI, what's the rent gap, what's the exit cap? An operator asks: who's actually here on day 60, what does the boiler sound like in February, does the on-site team know the difference between a vacancy and a turnover?
Most institutional capital — even good capital — asks the underwriter questions first. Monument Equity is set up to ask the operator questions first. Conservative leverage. Long hold horizon. Hands-on management. Decisions made by one principal.
This shows up most clearly in what I'm willing to buy. Not heavy turnarounds. Not structural deficits. Not properties that require a full property-management rebuild from day one. Light-to-moderate value-add, a clean rent-gap thesis, occupancy at 75% or above, vintage I can underwrite confidently. The deal has to pencil for an owner who plans to be there in year ten — not for an underwriter optimizing for a year-five exit.
It's a slower way to deploy capital. It's also the only way I know how to do it.