Episode summary
Building a $6.5 Billion Real Estate Empire
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · 27 min · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: Darren Fisk
Summary
Darren Fisk says Forum Investment Group’s biggest edge came from acting during the 2008 financial crisis with discipline rather than panic. He describes buying 9,000 apartment units by focusing not on distressed assets alone, but on distressed capital stacks, using conservative underwriting, strong partner relationships, and secondary and tertiary markets with durable job bases. He argues that in chaotic markets, the best opportunities are often obvious if investors can keep a steady mind and look “below the headline.”
He also explains how Forum evolved from a deal-by-deal syndication business into an institutional platform. Darren Fisk says the old model was useful early on, but it capped scale and made every raise a transaction. Building a fund business required compliance, tax, legal, and fund operations infrastructure, plus deeper talent. He says the firm learned to listen to investors on product design, which led to an interval fund structure for advisors.
Across the conversation, Darren Fisk emphasizes flexibility across the capital stack, patience, and the willingness to do nothing when conditions are unattractive. He expects the next chapter to be refinement rather than reinvention, with more focus on multifamily, debt, and credit as market cycles keep shifting.
Key takeaways
- Darren Fisk says Forum bought 9,000 units in and after 2008 by targeting distressed capital stacks, not just distressed properties.
- He argues that durable markets and conservative basis mattered more than heroics during the GFC.
- Darren Fisk says the firm’s deal-by-deal model limited scale, so it built an investment management platform with fund infrastructure.
- He says investors should design products around what advisors actually want, not what the manager prefers.
- Darren Fisk says flexibility up and down the capital stack lets Forum wait for better risk-adjusted returns.
- He expects future growth to come from refinement, durability, and multifamily-focused opportunities rather than reinvention.
Notable quotes
“we weren't buying distress necessarily assets. We were really buying to stress capital stacks”
“I call it integrity. Um, a lot of lot of folks may call it something different, but we had really created this people's trust”
“I never say an allocator because I I I love that you you brought that up because allocators mean that good market or bad market, you have to put money to work”
“What I learned was don't ever tell the market what you want to do. They'll tell you very quickly what they want you to do”
“I think the next chapter, David, is really about refinement, not reinvention”
How the episode opens
So, it's 2008. It was a global financial crisis. Most people were panicking. You went on this run of buying properties. You bought 9,000 units. How did you do that?
Well, um, it's easy to make up a story looking in the rearview mirror, but obviously liquidity disappeared. People, I always say, had two black eyes and a broken nose. and fear really dominated the overall market and we kind of did the opposite um not recklessly but because we had great partners um that had always kind of supported us over the years and just found this opportunity to go take advantage of others misfortunes.
I hate to really say that that way but people were in trouble. We were able to step in and we weren't buying distress necessarily assets. We were really buying to stress capital stacks and again liquidity panic.
Everybody was uncomfortable and so you had these four sellers. HUD was, you know, liquidating pools of brand new assets. Everything was for sale and there was no bid.
Maybe take go a little bit upstream of that. You had already built a reputation which allowed you to go out and purchase these 9,000 units. Tell me about the importance of building those relationships ahead of time.
I call it integrity. Um, a lot of lot of folks may call it something different, but we had really created this people's trust and this went back to 2003 with an old partner of mine when you know I met folks from my local gym, doctors, attorneys, lawyers. They were giving us capital to go buy our first few deals and we had started to prove a track record.
We had created this momentum and then when 08 hit, we had had great returns, great transparency, we had built our reporting, you know, standards.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- real estate investing
- 2008 financial crisis
- distressed capital structures
- multifamily real estate
- capital stack investing
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Forum Investment Group
- AlphaSense
Watch the episode
Watch “Building a $6.5 Billion Real Estate Empire” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
