The Phenomenal Power of Leverage That Built a 400-Unit Empire in Four Years with Andrew Freed
with Andrew Freed
Andrew Freed accomplished what most investors spend decades trying to achieve—he scaled from zero to 400 units in just four years. In this episode of The REI Agent Podcast, Andrew breaks down exactly how he used leverage, team building, and a relentless growth mindset to build a multifamily empire at a pace that defies conventional wisdom.
How did you scale to 400 units so quickly?
The speed of Andrew’s growth comes down to one word: leverage. Not just financial leverage, though that played a critical role, but leverage of time, relationships, and expertise. Rather than trying to learn everything himself and do every deal solo, Andrew surrounded himself with people who complemented his skills and brought deals, capital, and operational knowledge to the table. This allowed him to move on multiple acquisitions simultaneously instead of working through them one at a time.
What makes Andrew’s approach different from the typical real estate grind is that he understood early that your capacity is determined by the people around you, not by the hours you work. While other investors were out showing properties and handling maintenance calls themselves, Andrew was negotiating multiple deals at once because his team was executing the day-to-day operations. He made the counterintuitive move of spending money on team building before he needed to—hiring and empowering people when it felt expensive, knowing that this investment would exponentially accelerate his growth trajectory.
The four-year timeline matters here because it reveals something about how leverage compounds. Most investors take the safe route: buy one property, manage it, learn from it, buy the next. That’s a linear growth model. Andrew’s approach is exponential because each new team member or partnership essentially multiplies his capacity. By year four, he wasn’t four times the investor he was in year one—he was orders of magnitude more powerful because his infrastructure was built to handle volume.
What role did team building play in your success?
Andrew is emphatic that his results would have been impossible without the right team. From property managers to capital partners to deal sourcers, every person in his network serves a specific function that multiplies his capacity. He invested heavily in finding and developing these relationships early on, recognizing that the time spent building a team would pay exponential returns compared to trying to be a one-person operation. His team handles the day-to-day operations while he focuses on acquisitions and strategy.
The actual structure of Andrew’s team is worth studying. He didn’t hire based on credentials or experience level alone—he hired for alignment on vision and the willingness to grow into larger roles. This meant bringing in hungry people who understood that their compensation was tied to the growth of the business. When your team members have skin in the game and see the vision for 400 units, they behave differently than employees who are just punching a clock.
The property management piece is particularly crucial. Andrew didn’t try to manage properties himself or cobble together a janky internal system. He found partners who specialized in multifamily property management and empowered them to run the operations with clear KPIs and accountability. This freed up his time and mental energy to do what he does best: identify, underwrite, and negotiate deals. The cost of professional management was a worthwhile trade-off for the velocity it enabled.
Capital partners were another critical component. Andrew recognized that accessing capital was the constraint that would limit his growth more than anything else. By building relationships with investors, lenders, and syndicators, he created a web of financial resources that allowed him to move on deals faster than competitors who were going deal by deal to traditional banks. These partnerships also added expertise—experienced capital partners brought insights into what works and what doesn’t.
How do you think about leverage in real estate?
For Andrew, leverage goes far beyond putting a mortgage on a property. He thinks about leverage as any tool that allows you to do more with less—other people’s money, other people’s time, other people’s expertise. He uses creative financing structures, joint ventures, and syndication models to acquire properties that would be impossible to purchase with his own capital alone. This multiplier effect is what enabled the rapid scaling from a standing start to hundreds of units.
Financial leverage is the obvious component: using borrowed capital to control assets worth far more than your personal net worth. A 30% down payment on a $5 million apartment complex gives you exposure to $5 million in appreciation while your capital is working on ten different properties simultaneously. But this is only the foundation of Andrew’s leverage strategy.
The syndication model is particularly powerful. Instead of trying to fund acquisitions himself or with a partner or two, Andrew learned to pool capital from a network of passive investors. This meant he could do $50 million acquisitions with a small down payment by bringing together 30 investors who each contributed capital. He provided expertise and deal sourcing; they provided capital. The model scales because the number of investor relationships you have becomes your funding capacity.
Vendor leverage is another angle that often gets overlooked. Andrew builds relationships with contractors, lenders, insurance providers, and other vendors where his volume creates negotiating power. When you’re buying across 50 units instead of one, you get better pricing on labor, materials, and services. This margin advantage doesn’t show up on the deal underwriting but compounds into significant savings across the portfolio.
What mindset shifts were necessary for this growth?
Andrew talks about the mental barriers that hold most investors at five or ten units. The jump from small portfolio to empire requires fundamentally different thinking—moving from an operator mindset to a CEO mindset. He had to become comfortable with bigger numbers, bigger risks, and bigger decisions. The growth mindset that allowed him to see 400 units as achievable in four years was just as important as any financial strategy he employed.
Most investors have an invisible ceiling built into their beliefs about what’s possible. They think “I’ll buy a duplex, then a small apartment building, then maybe scale to 50 units over a decade.” Andrew’s mindset started from a different place: “What would it take to own 400 units?” and then reverse-engineered the systems, capital, and team required to make it happen. This isn’t about positive thinking—it’s about actually doing the math and the work.
The specific mindset shift from operator to CEO is critical. As an operator, you think in terms of managing properties, collecting rent, handling tenants. That’s a fundamentally limited model because it’s bounded by your personal capacity and attention. A CEO thinks about systems, people, capital structures, and strategic growth. Andrew had to ask himself: “How can I make decisions that scale my operation 10x without me working 10x harder?” That’s a CEO question, not an operator question.
Risk tolerance also had to evolve. Operators are often risk-averse because they’re using their own capital and the failure of one deal has material impact. CEOs think about portfolio risk, diversification, and acceptable loss rates. When you’re doing 40 deals a year instead of 1, a few failed deals are expected and absorbed. This shift in thinking actually reduces total risk even though individual deals might be riskier.
What advice do you have for investors who want to scale?
Andrew encourages investors to think bigger from the start. Most people set goals that are too small, then wonder why their results are modest. He recommends finding mentors and communities of people who are operating at the level you want to reach, because proximity to higher-level thinking changes what you believe is possible. He also stresses the importance of taking bold action rather than waiting for certainty—the deals that built his empire came from moving decisively when others hesitated.
The practical advice here is specific: get around people already doing what you want to do. Andrew didn’t figure out how to scale to 400 units alone. He surrounded himself with others who had already done multimillion-dollar deals, who understood syndication, who had built big teams. Their experience became his roadmap. You can compress years of learning by absorbing the patterns and mistakes of people who are 5-10 years ahead of you.
Taking bold action before you feel ready is the other side of this. Every investor can find reasons to delay: rates are uncertain, the market might cool, I need more capital, I need more experience. Andrew’s insight is that you never feel fully ready. The investors who scale are the ones who say “I’ve learned enough to make a move” and then move. Each deal teaches you more than another year of study ever could. The compounding effect of action plus learning beats perfection every single time.
About Andrew Freed
Andrew Freed is a multifamily real estate investor who scaled from zero to 400 units in four years through the strategic use of leverage, team building, and a growth-oriented mindset. His rapid trajectory demonstrates what’s possible when bold decisions meet disciplined execution in real estate investing.
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