Valkere Investment Group’s Operations Manager is Christopher Levarek. He coordinates the company’s management, technical infrastructure, and day-to-day operations required to support the business. Christopher is responsible for the development and management of the Valkere Team, as well as the implementation of company systems to increase business efficiency. He collaborates with the Marketing and Sales Teams to establish new/existing partner relationships and identify/discover new investment opportunities.
In his spare time, he enjoys playing the guitar, spending time with family, and reading in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lives with his wife, Jamie, and two sons, Christopher and Julien.
Valkere Investment Group’s sales and marketing manager is Ashton Levarek. He coordinates the growth of new and existing partner relationships and suggests creative ways to raise brand awareness.
Ashton is a retired Special Warfare Pararescue Jumper, Sniper, and Combat Diver from the United States Air Force. With over ten combat deployments and 21 years of experience working in US Special Operations, Ashton is a firm believer in leveraging expertise and professional experience to ensure mission success, and thus focuses on building effective teams to ensure the success of our investments.
Ashton now resides in Oregon with his wife Vivian and their two young daughters, where he enjoys traveling the world and teaching his daughters to surf and snowboard.
Episode Highlights Here:
Ashton Levarek:
When we do an exit, we’ve only exited one property to date, we have a couple under a contract that were being sold right now. I mean, those are good problems to have. But our plan for that was actually more to capitalize on the bonus depreciation of new syndication.
Pierce York:
You guys exit real estate. How do you handle the tax?
Ashton Levarek:
The nice thing about investing in multifamily syndications is that there’s a lot of bonus depreciation, and you can realize that all in the first year and write a lot of that off. So we’ve looked at 1031 Exchange, we looked at Deferred Sales Trust, and there’s another one too, but my concern with those is a lot of them, you’re deferring that tax into a higher tax bracket. I mean, that’s what’s going on, the taxes are raised. So like, if you go into a 1031 exchange, you’re deferring those taxes into a new tax bracket, because eventually, you’ll pay them unless you just keep kicking that can down the road until you die. We’ve talked this over a while, several times. So you know, when we do exit, we’ve only exited one property to date, we have a couple under a contract that were being sold right now. I mean, those are good problems to have. But our plan for that was actually more to capitalize on the bonus depreciation of new syndications to be able to write off.
Christopher Levarek:
We typically do that 1031 light type of deal where you sell one, you buy one. You sell when you buy one. A lot of people, in our personal tax, we have, obviously, either one of us, our spouse, or us is a real estate professional. So we write off a lot of that personally, as tax depreciation for our personal tax returns. For the company, it’s the same thing we’re buying, and selling. We kind of, we kind of tell that to our investor crowd as well, because there are a lot of solutions out there. Some of them are more complex to set up than others. I mean, you guys are experts in this field, and you have a really cool solution for big high net worth people who are looking to transfer to not have to have that tax burden. But typically there’s a threshold to that solution. So I find the easiest solution, typically, for most, whether you’re a real estate professional or not, is to have a taxable loss, that equals the amount due in your taxable gain, whatever that is. If you can do that, and it’s the same type of income, there’s always these ifs, then, it makes it pretty simple for the more investor base that we target, which is the working professional, they’re making over $100 to $150,000. They’re investing $25,000. In syndication, we’re helping that kind of person. But there are a lot of solutions out there. You guys have a great option to write with the Deferred Sales Trust. I’ve talked with Brett a couple of times about it and listened to this podcast. It’s a great solution.
Pierce York:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can’t tell you how many syndicators I’ve talked to that have turned down 1031 money? Are you guys turning down 1031 money because it’s just too much paperwork and not cost-effective for you guys at that point? Like, I saw a property. I got $30,000 in 1031 money and I want to put in your deal.
Christopher Levarek:
We’re exploring the option of creating the entity to start where you have the shares that are class that is allowed to do that. We haven’t done that in the past. We have turned away 1031 money because it’s typically hard in syndication unless you engineer it from the start to do that. There’s a reason of course because of like-kind exchange and all that stuff. But there are a lot of syndicators, who have figured that out, and our partner QC capital is one of them. So we’re benefiting from partnering with them on that.
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About Ashton and Christopher Levarek
Valkere Investment Group’s sales and marketing manager is Ashton Levarek. He coordinates the growth of new and existing partner relationships and suggests creative ways to raise brand awareness. Ashton is a retired Special Warfare Pararescue Jumper, Sniper, and Combat Diver from the United States Air Force. With over ten combat deployments and 21 years of experience working in US Special Operations, Ashton is a firm believer in leveraging expertise and professional experience to ensure mission success, and thus focuses on building effective teams to ensure the success of our investments.
Ashton now resides in Oregon with his wife Vivian and their two young daughters, where he enjoys traveling the world and teaching his daughters to surf and snowboard.
Valkere Investment Group’s Operations Manager is Christopher Levarek. He coordinates the company’s management, technical infrastructure, and day-to-day operations required to support the business. Christopher is responsible for the development and management of the Valkere Team, as well as the implementation of company systems to increase business efficiency. He collaborates with the Marketing and Sales Teams to establish new/existing partner relationships and identify/discover new investment opportunities.
In his spare time, he enjoys playing the guitar, spending time with family, and reading in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lives with his wife, Jamie, and two sons, Christopher and Julien.
