COMPANY OVERVIEW
APPA Real Estate (“APPA”) is an investment management firm providing accredited investors opportunities to invest their capital alongside experienced operating partners who have a proven track record of success delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns.
Our goal is to help investors build long-term wealth and passive income streams through a diversified offering of multifamily value-add and development investments located in growing regions across the U.S.
APPA’s senior management team has been investing on behalf of institutional advisors, pension funds, private equity firms and individual investors for the past 20 years.
APPA believes the apartment market, as an investment type, offers investors greater returns with less risk than other investments. The apartment market is less reliant on business cycles for occupancy and, in our target market, should continue to benefit from demographic trends and population growth.
Disciplined Investments
At APPA, we focus on three fundamental principles: Location, Value Creation, and Timing. The primary driver in real estate economics is net in-migration, which is location-based. We focus on markets with a long history of population growth. A growing, diverse employment base is the second determination of location and market. We track submarkets and employers undergoing expansion in five key industries: Healthcare, Technology, Education, Government, and Energy. These industries have above market employee compensation, and three of the five tend to hold steady when the economy slows. Timing of the real estate market, although challenging, is an equally important aspect of the principles. Supply and demand is the most widely, and easily-tracked market index reflecting timing. The investment cycle requires a deep understanding of capital availability including both equity and debt, interest rate trends, and cap rates.
Distressed Opportunities
APPA targets distressed assets in established markets within which we are familiar. There are two primary types of these distressed opportunities we may pursue: asset-owner distress and building distress. Asset-owner distress exists when the current owner has experienced various challenges that must be solved independently of the market. Building-distress exists when physical assets may not have been properly maintained and or are not up to current codes and therefore require significant capital expenditures and workout expertise to turnaround. Both types of distress present unique opportunities and challenges that exist throughout the full economic cycle, thus offering APPA the ability to succeed through up and down markets.
Accountability
APPA maintains separate operating accounts for each property. Every investment must stand on its own merit. In addition to providing detailed monthly operating reports direct from property management, APPA prepares and distributes quarterly financial reports comparing actual performance with original projections.
B Corp Certification
APPA became a Certified B Corporation in 2018. B Corps are a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corp certification is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic certification is to milk.
APPA was certified by the non-profit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. We’ve evaluated how our practices impact our employees, our community, the environment, and our customers.
Today, there are over 2,200 Certified B Corps around the globe. We are proud to join them in redefining success in business, so that one day everyone uses business as a force for good. To learn more about our certification, check out our B Corp profile.
Leadership Team
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Aaron Marzwell, CEO
Aaron Marzwell is a Founder & Co-Managing Partner of APPA Real Estate. Aaron has completed over $5.0 billion in multi-family and commercial value-added transactions since 1999 including more than 100 multifamily properties and 2,300 units, 546,000 square feet of retail, 675,000 square feet of office and over 1,000 hotel rooms.
Prior to founding APPA, Mr. Marzwell was Vice President of Investment and Development for CIM Group. His responsibilities included market assessment, property identification and negotiation, and the acquisition and disposition of real estate investments, management of the entire development process of the investments, and work out restructuring of distressed assets and investments.
Mr. Marzwell holds a Masters of Science in Real Estate Development and Finance from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a Business Administration and Accounting Minor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is a member of the Institute of Real Estate Managements (IREM) and Turnaround Management Association (TMA). He has appeared as a guest speaker at various functions, including those for the Urban Land Institute, UCLA and other assorted industry events. Mr. Marzwell currently serves on the Board of Directors for Temple Beth AM and Pressman Academy and is a member of the ULI. He has previously served on the board for various nonprofits.
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Brian Rinsky, CFOBrian joined APPA after five years as the Chief Credit Examiner and Head of Regulatory Affairs for the New York Branch of MUFG Trust Bank, a subsidiary of MUFG and one of the world’s largest financial institutions. In that dual role, Brian was responsible for evaluating and overseeing credit risk within the firm’s $10 billion loan portfolio, which included commercial real estate and fund finance loans. Brian also managed the entire regulatory affairs framework, building and maintaining relationships with the New York State Department of Financial Services, the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and San Francisco, and since November 2017, the OCC. Prior to that, Brian was the bank regulatory director in the fixed income group at Citigroup.
Brian started his career as a bank examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Los Angeles Branch in 2000, where he rose up the ranks to a senior staff manager and senior examiner. In that capacity, Brian oversaw a team of 16 senior bank examiners, and led and participated on reviews at some of the country’s largest financial organizations.
Brian graduated with a B.A. in Economics from UCLA in 2000, and has continued his education throughout his career, earning certificates in accounting and commercial real estate from UCLA Extension in 2003 and 2005, respectively, and then becoming a CFA charter holder in 2010.