A multifamily investment advisor helps an owner decide whether, when, and how to move an apartment asset in service of a larger wealth strategy, then executes the transaction if one makes sense. The second half of that sentence is what a broker does. The first half is the most important, and it’s the part most owners never get.
There’s something our industry rarely says out loud: a broker is paid when you transact. That is the compensation model, mine included. So, the most useful question you can ask anyone competing for your listing: under what circumstances would you tell me not to sell? If the answer is vague, you are talking to a broker. If the answer is specific, with reasons, you’re talking to an advisor.
I have spent more than two decades on both sides of that question. Over that period I have built my own holdings through TayCon Properties to more than 800 commercial real estate units across multiple asset classes, including more than 500 multifamily units, largely by reinvesting proceeds through 1031 exchanges. My partner Robert Johnston owns and operates more than 120 multifamily units of his own across the Bay Area.
We have made these decisions with our own capital, in the same market, under the same tax code as the Clients we advise. That is the perspective we bring to a portfolio, and it’s the reason our Clients stay with us across multiple transactions and, in many cases, across generations of the same family.
What Is the Difference Between a Multifamily Broker and an Investment Advisor?
A broker sells the asset in front of them. An investment advisor determines whether that asset should be sold, and what the proceeds need to become.
For a multifamily investor, a decision around whether to sell a property is not just about price. There may be years of accumulated depreciation to consider, a 1031 exchange to structure, a portfolio that has become too concentrated, or a succession plan that changes what the Client needs from the asset. The best outcome isn’t always the highest price today, it’s the transaction that puts the Client in a stronger position five to ten years from now, measured after tax.
That framing changes the relationship. Advisory work does not end at closing. It continues into the replacement property, the next consolidation, the refinance, and, in many cases, into the next generation of the same family. We have represented Clients through multiple transactions over decades, and in several cases through a generational transfer of the same portfolio. This is the wealth management lens we bring to every relationship: real estate as a strategic, tax-advantaged wealth-building tool.
When Does It Make Sense to Bring in an Advisor?
The right time to partner with an advisor is before a listing goes live or an exchange clock starts. This gives you the most strategic options. Specifically, an advisor conversation can be helpful when you are:
- Weighing a 1031 exchange, particularly with the 45-day identification window approaching.
- Planning a generational transfer of real estate.
- Holding several smaller properties and considering consolidation into fewer, larger, stabilized assets.
- Evaluating real estate for the first time as a place for new liquidity from RSUs, an exit, IPO, or the current wave of AI-driven wealth creation in the Bay Area.
- Exploring markets outside California, including growth states like Texas, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington, where tax treatment, regulation, and growth trends may better fit a Client’s goals.
- Considering diversification beyond apartments into complementary asset classes such as net-lease retail or self-storage, where Marcus & Millichap expects San Francisco to lead the region’s rent growth again this year on an almost nonexistent construction pipeline.
- Wondering whether the restoration of 100% bonus depreciation under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changes the math on a property you already own.
That last point is specific. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, permanently restored 100% bonus depreciation for qualifying property both acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025. IRS Notice 2026-11, issued January 14, 2026, clarified how those rules apply to real estate, including a component election that can qualify individual components of a phased development or renovation even when the overall project began before that date.
Bonus depreciation does not apply to the building structure itself; it applies to the shorter-lived components, fixtures, and land improvements that a cost segregation study identifies. Paired with that study, it can materially change the first-year economics of an acquisition. It is one of the more consequential shifts in tax treatment for multifamily owners in a decade, and it is still underused.
What Does the Advisory Process Actually Look Like?
It starts with the Client’s tax position and balance sheet.
- Portfolio and tax review: depreciation schedule, basis, debt structure, liquidity needs, and timeline, before a broker opinion of value or a listing conversation.
- Submarket positioning: multifamily prices differ by submarket and asset class, based on employer concentration, return-to-office patterns, competitive deliveries, and resident profiles.
- Execution: underwriting, marketing, negotiation, and close, including identifying and closing a 1031 replacement property inside the exchange window or moving into the next consolidation or diversification. All of this is evaluated against the Client’s tax goals throughout.
- What’s next: Client portfolio review continues ongoing, adjusting and optimizing as the Client’s life and the markets change.
Why Does Hyper-Local Knowledge Matter in the Bay Area?
Because the Bay Area is more than one market, and the national narrative about it is years out of date.
Start with the simplest force in real estate: how many apartments exist against how many people want one. San Francisco never had the post-pandemic building boom that flooded Austin and Phoenix, and this year the metro will add fewer new apartments than in any year since 2012. Demand never stopped. Marcus & Millichap’s Q2 2026 report puts San Francisco County vacancy at 3.4%, and in the neighborhoods where AI companies are hiring, SoMa, Mission Bay and Downtown, rents on the newest buildings grew more than 13% year-over-year.
Down the Peninsula, the older, well-maintained buildings, the ones with no rooftop deck and no lobby coffee bar, are running vacancy at or below 3%. They are competing against almost nothing new.
Silicon Valley is tighter still. Marcus & Millichap expects San Jose to add roughly 150 apartments this year across the entire metro, the smallest share of new supply of any major U.S. market, which should push vacancy to a 25-year low and rent growth to the fastest in the country.
But this is where a good advisor must know the market. Rents in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos and North Sunnyvale grew more than 6% year-over-year, while East and South San Jose came in under 2%. Twenty minutes apart, two entirely different investments. That difference is the whole proof point for an advisor who knows a market block by block rather than by headline.
Then there is the market nobody is looking at. Oakland, for example, was overbuilt between 2019 and 2024, then vacancy spiked and the story stuck. That narrative is now out of date. Over the past year Oakland-Berkeley posted both the sharpest increase in occupancy and the strongest rent growth of any submarket in the metro, and new construction has slowed to a trickle, with fewer than 1,000 units a year expected for the foreseeable future.
The price is what makes it interesting. Oakland carries the highest yields of any major West Coast market, and apartments there still trade below what they cost in 2019.
With occupancy rising, new supply falling, and prices below where they sat seven years ago: it’s a rare combination that points to opportunity.
There is also a newer local dynamic: where the capital is coming from. The AI boom is creating a generation of Bay Area engineers, founders, and early employees with a liquidity event and a decision to make. In December 2025 we represented a syndication of employees from a major technology company in the acquisition of Pinecrest Apartments, a 47-unit community at 655-663 Moorpark Way in Mountain View, for $10.6 million. Their objective was not yield. It was diversification out of a single concentrated stock position into something they could hold for 20 years.
What Does Advisory Look Like in Practice?
The clearest examples are transactions where the sale and the reinvestment were designed together, before either one happened.
Consolidating three buildings into two
A long-time Client owned three vintage Silicon Valley properties totaling 33 units: 700 and 710 Coleman Avenue in Menlo Park, 3331 Princeton Way in Santa Clara, and 119 Crescent Avenue in Sunnyvale. All three were in largely original condition. The real problem was not the yield; it was that the Client was managing three sets of contractors in three cities and had been for years.
We sold the portfolio for $13.4 million in September 2025 and, in the same planned exchange, redeployed the proceeds into two fully remodeled assets that October: Park Tower Townhomes & Apartments in Castro Valley, 52 units, and 280 Howland Street in Redwood City, 18 units, for $24.35 million combined. The Client went from 33 units to 70, from three properties to two, and reset the depreciation schedule in the process.
As Robert put it at the time, leveraging our network through Marcus & Millichap and long-cultivated local relationships is what let us source rare opportunities that met the Client’s location, quality, scale, and tax objectives.
Tripling scale inside a familiar submarket
Another investor sold Pacific Apartments, a 20-unit 1962 building in Livermore, for $5.625 million, and exchanged into Briarwood Apartments, a 64-unit 1961 community roughly two miles away, for $19.75 million. Briarwood had already received $2.3 million in capital improvements. The Client more than tripled their unit count, reset basis, and stayed in a submarket they had known for years rather than buying unfamiliar risk in a market they had only read about.
Multi-generational ownership
A family ownership group had held El Dorado Apartments, a 39-unit community in Belmont, for decades, having originally acquired it from the Bohannon family, among San Mateo County’s most influential developers. They had maintained the 1962 asset exceptionally well, and by 2026 the depreciation benefits had long since been exhausted. In this case, the analysis pointed to a sale that allowed the family to diversify, reset basis, and capitalize on the scarcity of well-maintained older buildings described above. We closed in May 2026 at $20.5 million, more than $525,000 per unit.
Three Clients, three different answers, and the consistent rule: strategy comes first.
How Should You Choose a Multifamily Investment Advisor?
- Judge an advisor on the questions they ask before they name a price. A strong advisor will want to know:
- What is your remaining basis, and where are you in the depreciation schedule?
- What do you want this real estate to accomplish in 10 years, and for whom?
- What are your liquidity needs, and how much management do you actually want?
- Is the goal to consolidate, diversify, or reposition?
- Who inherits this, and what do they want from it?
Then ask them the one question that matters most, the one I opened with: under what circumstances would you tell me not to sell this building? An advisor will have an answer ready, because they have given it before.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a multifamily investment advisor do?
A multifamily investment advisor helps an apartment owner decide whether, when, and how to sell, acquire, hold, consolidate, or exchange a property as part of a long-term wealth strategy, and then executes the transaction. Unlike a purely transactional brokerage relationship, advisory work considers the Client’s full portfolio, remaining basis and depreciation, tax position, liquidity needs, and succession plans before recommending any action.
What is the difference between a multifamily broker and an investment advisor?
A broker markets and sells the asset in front of them. An investment advisor first determines whether the asset should be sold at all, and what the proceeds need to become. The practical test is whether the professional can describe specific circumstances under which they would advise you not to transact.
When should I hire a multifamily investment advisor?
Before a property is listed or a 1031 exchange clock starts. Once a sale is underway, the 45-day identification window and 180-day closing window sharply narrow the available options. Common triggers include weighing an exchange, consolidating several smaller properties, planning a generational transfer, or deploying new liquidity from an equity event.
Is now a good time to sell an apartment building in the Bay Area?
It depends on the asset and your tax position, but the fundamentals are much stronger than the national narrative suggests. Marcus & Millichap’s Q2 2026 reports have vacancy running below the national average across all three Bay Area metros, with San Jose at a 25-year low, and have San Jose and San Francisco posting the fastest and second-fastest rent growth of any major U.S. market. Supply is the reason: San Jose will add roughly 150 apartments this year and San Francisco about 1,400, among the lowest in the country. This keeps well-maintained older buildings on the Peninsula competing against very little new product.
What is a 1031 exchange, and how much time do I have?
A 1031 exchange allows an investor to defer capital gains tax by reinvesting the proceeds of a sale into a like-kind replacement property. You have 45 days from the sale to formally identify replacement candidates and 180 days to close. Because those windows are strict, the replacement search should begin before the original property is marketed.
About the Author
Adam Levin is Executive Managing Director at Levin Johnston of Marcus & Millichap, a leading commercial real estate advisory group, investment advisor, and brokerage team based in the Bay Area that has closed more than $9 billion in transactions to date. He consistently ranks among Marcus & Millichap’s top multifamily agents nationally and is an 11-time CoStar Power Broker.
