A decent chunk of his monthly income is a dividend payment from his own real estate fund, which he started raising money for after quitting his hedge fund job in May 2021. He raised $7 million in four months, $605,000 of which was his own money. The rest came from 21 different investors.

"I deployed that $7 million and bought about $25 million worth of property within 10 months," he told BI. "I started paying a 12% dividend, and then six months after that, I was able to increase that dividend to 15%."

Shifting from investor to syndicator was "a natural progression," the 36-year-old, who now runs two funds, told BI. While he put hours of work into crafting a pitch for prospective investors — the deck for his first fund consisted of 82 pages and the deck for the second, which he "slightly tweaked," was 80 — most of the hard work happened between 2013, when he bought his first property, and 2021, when he opened the fund.

"I had success on my own doing a lot of residential stuff and a couple of small commercial things," said Berkley, who bought his first property, a $466,000 condo in Boston, in April 2013. He financed it with an FHA loan and 3.5% down payment, and lived in it for a month before work required him to move to New York City. At that point, he rented both bedrooms and started collecting rental income, but not enough to cover all of his housing expenses.

A year later, he sold the condo for $70,000 more than he bought it for and used the profit to buy a multi-family property in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he continued buying multi-families for the next five years.

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In 2019, Berkley started selling off his Worcester rentals to buy medical buildings and gain experience in the commercial space.

Raising $31 million between his 2 funds

For the first fund, the mindset of his investors was more so, "we're going to give this guy a shot," he said. "And I came in super generous on the fees. I was zero and 20: 0% management fees, 0% fee on assets and 20% carry."

He was also personally guaranteeing the debt in order to offer better debt terms, "which is unheard of," he noted. "I was willing to do that to get better returns to my investors — put my money where my mouth was and try to attract people to come in. Because if you believe in yourself, then it makes it easier for other people to believe in you."

Berkley, who shared slides from both of his decks that ultimately helped him raise tens of millions of dollars, noted that the deck helped more with the first fund when investors were taking more of a chance on him: "My second fund was three to four times as big because of my track record and relationships — not the deck."

His second fund closed at just under $24 million. He invested about $500,000 of his own money, and the rest came from other investors, many of whom were investors in the first fund.

It's unrealistic to think that you can "just throw some deck together and talk to some rich people and raise money," he emphasized.

But when you prove yourself, the returns speak for themselves, and "the money just starts to come."

Getting started in real estate requires 'making sacrifices'

For rookie investors looking to acquire their first property, Berkeley recommends a specific beginner-friendly strategy: house hacking, which involves renting out a portion of your home — either a unit if you're in a multifamily or a room if you're in a single-family — to offset your mortgage.

"Put 5% down," he advised (many new investors get started with FHA loans that allow you to put down as little as 3.5%). "Work extra shifts, work an extra job to save up. Save up that 20 grand or 30 grand so you can put 5% down to buy a $500,000 duplex or triplex and then rent out extra bedrooms, rent out the extra units. Now, all of a sudden, you have people paying your rent and you're getting paid to live in your own house."

Minimizing housing expenses is "like getting a 30, 40 $50,000-a-year raise," he added. If you maintain your current lifestyle, you can use those savings to buy a second property.

He noted that house hacking requires sacrifice and discipline: "You might want to have your own house or have your own apartment or live in the cool part of town, but you're never going to build wealth that way. You have to go out of your comfort zone and most other people are not willing to do that."