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January 2026 Update with Justin Ford

As one of our privileged members, you get access to real estate expert Justin Ford's monthly updates.

 This Update covers special situations with our network of experts in the kinds of private deals most people never even hear about.

Each month, Bob Irish checks in with Justin to see how his previous real estate deals are performing. Justin also discusses the latest trends in the market, what to look for when purchasing property as an investment, and much more.

You can watch or listen to the October 2025 interview with Bob Irish and Justin Ford, or read the transcript below.

Bob Irish: Bob Irish here with our monthly call with Justin Ford of Pax Properties. Today we're going to update you on all the standalone investments in Florida and also keep you abreast of the underlying investments in the cap plus diversified income  fund. I say this every month, I'll say it again: Throughout real estate booms and busts, Pax Properties has never failed to produce a positive result for investors or missed a mortgage payment. Justin, with that said,  I've been missing you. It's good to have you back. What's going on?

Justin Ford: Yeah, Bob. Well, first of all, it's great to see you. It has been a couple months., things are really quite good right now, which we'll get into., we didn't have the call  for the end of December. And the reason for that was one, everything was moving at a snail's pace from before Christmas to just after New Year's as both those holidays fell in the middle of the week. Slow building departments, lenders, all this kind of stuff.
 
Justin Ford: And I felt that giving a presentation at that time would be just a snapshot of November. So little had moved in so many ways and we've been on the verge of  great things  for a while now and Verge is finally starting to move her keester! .

Bob Irish: Great. Great.

Bob Irish: Hey, what do you say we start off  talking about the hotels?

Justin Ford: Yes, let's do that. Okay. So Vero, so  the issue on both our hotels, but Vero also and   the market's been down yet we've been outperforming  consistently. So I'll remind everyone there's something called RevPAR, revenue per available room. That's your occupancy multiple average daily rate. It's how much you make per room per night. And we've been beating our index for the last four months in a row  by 15% in September, 8% in October, 12% in November.

Justin Ford: In December, Bob, we beat our index by 59%.

Bob Irish: Oh my gosh, that's incredible.

Justin Ford: 59%. Yeah. And yet, and yet the market is down so much that we're still 30% below last year's revenue, right? So, we're grabbing more than our market share, but the market's down. And that's okay. It's starting to come back. And  February and March are our highest months there.  so, we expect to really start producing some positive cash again because it's been down so much. We've kind of been negative on cash even though we never missed distributions on Vero because our cost basis was always so low. We bought it for $2 million, , 12 and a half years ago. And once again, we are on contract to sell it.

Bob Irish: Oh my gosh.

Justin Ford: This this time we hope not to be left-

Bob Irish: The saga continues!

Justin Ford: Yeah.  But this is a stronger buyer. They own three hotels.
 
Justin Ford: Their offer is a little over seven million. So, based on what we paid a long time ago, it’s a good return.  We put money into it, but we've produced all these distributions,  They submitted their LOI last week. I got the contract yesterday. We'll get the contract back to them Monday. They're going for an SBA loan just like we're going for an SBA loan on Ocala. That is a different kind of refi. Again, all those things do take a bit longer. We expect if everything goes as it should go  we expect to close that one in May or June but that'll be a good return for investors and  we're really we're really looking things are looking up at Vero after a very slow market.

Bob Irish: Hey, that's great. So, to continue on the hotel theme, let's talk about Ocala and Equus.

Justin Ford: Excellent. Right. So Equus's market has been down too, but Equus also has outperformed. For five straight months it has beaten its index by anywhere from 2% to 29%.

 
Justin Ford: So but still the revenue is down about a third from last year because the market's down and I think the markets again are down for two reasons. One, if you read the business press, luxury hotels are up, but economy and midscale are down, right? So, I think some of that is what's going on in the economy. And some of that is also, frankly, for us is that we had no storms. So, when we've had storms in the past, where, the linemen had to come out and we've been a hotel for a lot of those folks. They typically boosted us a month or two and gave us a good month or two. So, we're kind of thankful that no one suffered from storms, but it's also had a little bit of a compounding effect on the slow market there. But still, we have a T12 of just under a million dollars in NOI. Again, grabbing more than our share.
 
Justin Ford: Now, when we're grabbing more than our share in Equus, that's really quite a great accomplishment because we used to compare ourselves at Equus to the economy set, which is the lowest set of the different types. you have economy, midscale, upper midscale,  something and then luxury. So you have five different categories and a year ago started to  compare ourselves at a higher level. We changed from economy to midscale and again we've beaten midscale for the last five months in a row. So, we're grabbing our share of the market of a higher niche in the market but the market's still down a bit,

Bob Irish: Right.
 

Justin Ford: But we are expecting a very strong February and March*. And we have pending an SBA refi and that's been going on for like three months, , because again it includes a government agency that guarantees half the loan and then the bank as well. And that refi, which is progressing, , we're shooting to return about $4 million to investors in Equus in the original equity.

 
Justin Ford: So, but we think that we'll close in late February or early March. So, we're still working on that, but again, beating our market and looking forward to a strong February and March coming up.
 

Bob Irish: Wow.

 

Bob Irish: That's great. Let's shift gears here. Let's go to Tallahassee and talk about the two properties under development.
 

Bob Irish: Yeah.
 

Justin Ford: right? Yes. Yes. So, let's look at the Monarch and Swan.
 

Bob Irish: Yeah.
 

Justin Ford: We'll start with Swan because that's the one we finished first as far as construction goes. That's currently at 72% occupancy and 74% pre-leased. which is a good number. We've been kind of stuck in occupancy for the last three months there. We've were gaining about 10% occupancy  a month, we're gaining more like  3 to 4% right now. Part of that is this is the slowest time for leasing  up there. Really March is when we start to pick up.
 
Justin Ford: So we do expect to be in the 90s around May or June.  but at Swan also we've been approved for a refi with this really good  bridge lending group out of New York. I've met the principals a few times and they're really going to be good partners I think for different  projects in the future. That refi could have closed even this week but again as I said there are many slow things happening in the early part of the year. We're shooting to close it next week. It's a $12.5 million refi and that will return $1.4 million to the fund. So we had  in the beginning when we bought our four properties when we raised the fund we had more cash than we could productively put to use. So we lent it out to affiliated parties  and that's in the operating agreement. It's been in the reports and it's been  so it's that those funds are making 9.5%. They're making a good return and now a big chunk of that's coming back  to the fund and that should be in by next week.

 
Justin Ford: I want to reiterate, we've always we've been saying since we've been dealing with this tough market that we're going to shoot to resume distributions at the end of Q1 or more likely at the end of Q2.  that is still the case when we get this 14. have to hold on to it because that's going to be cash that's going to be provide just really great liquidity for us closing our big up to $14 million loan and on a send out in Oklahoma the HUD the HUD loan out there that the fund will have that 1.4 four.  that's that that that'll be more than enough. Typically, it's a 10% requirement that but the fund should have more than that because the Monarch is also going to  be refied probably close in February if we go with the same lender for Swan because they made an $8.5 million refi offer there. And that will return a net of $700,000 to the fund. So, when we close that loan loan, the fund will have over $2 million back in cash,
 
Bob Irish: Okay.
 

Justin Ford: which will really put us in good position once we close the ascend refi to then, , start to resume distributions and start catching up on all the past distributions since we suspended it about six or seven quarters ago. and the Monarch operationally,  we're not done with the construction yet, but we did finish building a and  Parker was a great  help there. Parker also is our media guy who helps us  record these calls right here. So shout out to him. We finished Building A and we have our first five tenants moved in  just a couple weeks ago and we have another one pre-leased.
 

Bob Irish: All right.
 

Justin Ford: So we're shooting to get A which has I think it's 28 units. I might be wrong but it's close to that. And  that should be full by the end of  by the end of March. At that time B will be completely done and we'll just keep on going and we and and we'll in March we'll be entering the strong leasing season.

Justin Ford: So we really do think we have a good chance starting  in March to add 10% occupancy a month there, right? And by the end of the year to hit fully stabilized at Monarch and then go to a perm loan at Monarch early next year. So  Monarch is moving along, I'm happy to say. And that that takes care of the two development properties.
 

Bob Irish: Great. Let's talk about what's going on in Oklahoma. Is everything okay there?
 

Justin Ford: Yep. So we we're going to address now the four stabilized apartment communities as a group, right?
 

Bob Irish: Yeah.
 

Justin Ford: And we'll go one by one. But first, let me let me before I go to to the fund, we'll go to the one outside of the fund, which is Renaissance. And so Renaissance 168 units in Tallahassee, we bought in mid 2017. So, we're coming up on our 9th year anniversary there. Renaissance is at 97% occupancy pre-leased at 97%. And all four of our stabilized apartment communities, beat their budget  for the fourth quarter on NOI. And all four of them are doing amazing as far as occupancy. We're going to go out to Oklahoma now because the main story at Renaissance is that we're at 97% leased, 97% pre-leased, beat our NOI last quarter and we're expecting to do it again. Again, we're paying another 10% distribution, which basically what we have done cumulatively since inception. But the the properties out in Oklahoma are also doing really well. Let's start in Tulsa. That was the first one we bought out there, the 91 unit called  Apex at Midtown. And  that property has been performing well for quite a while in the 90s (occupancy).

 
Justin Ford: However, we were going to go through a refi on that one. We're hoping to close out at the end of last year, but our occupy dipped to like to the high 80s, very low 90s., and that combined with cash being tight in the fund at that moment,, we're pushing that back refi. We're now shooting to do that refi in April or May. And, and because we wanted to get the occupancy up, wanted to get the cash strong for the fund. And sure enough, , Apex right now is at 94% accuracy and 95% pre-leased. So, we're engaging again with the lenders there to officially go through that process. We sort of nonofficially went through a process and then we saw where we were. We said, "Okay, we're going to wait till we build this up for a couple of months." So, Apex is looking very strong and we should begin the actual  process there, ,  contracting with third parties, going through committee and all that kind of stuff in midFebruary.

 
Justin Ford: And we're shooting to close that around April. So, that's Apex., Elevate. Elevate  has been performing well for a while, but it was in the low 90s at certain points, but  last part of last year, we started getting to the high 90s. Right now, it's at 98% leased and 98% pre-leased. Again, it  exceeded its NOI  last last quarter. And that one is that one we're just starting now. Now that we're putting together a few very high strong months there, we're we're going to about simultaneously with Apex, we're going to go through the package  the loan process there and hoping to close that also around April, perhaps May again having cash, having strong occupancy for a few months in a row, having strong collections. So Elevate looks good. Our next one in the fund is the 146-unit apartment community Ascend in Moore Oklahoma and that's always been performing well since July as far as oxy and so forth.
 
Justin Ford: Right now it's at 95% leased and 95% pre-leased, and did almost a million dollars in NOI last year even though  we didn't first stabilize that property until either March or April.
 

Bob Irish: Copy.

Justin Ford: So going forward we're our budget we're going to I think it's over 1.2 2 million NOI. But when they underwrite you for a loan, they look at your T1 and your T3. T1 means you're trailing one month. T3 means you're trailing three month P&L. And then if they're looking at your T3, they'll multiply that by four to see where you're where you're going. They expect you to be performing. If they look at your T1, they multiply by by 12. So, at Ascend, , we have a loan in the works with Northmarq, which whom we've done a few loans before. Those guys are great. And the offer was around $13.4 million, I think. But we might be able to get that up to $14.1 million. But even at $13.4 million, basically of that is a return of money to investors because  there's about a $10 million first loan and then there's some secondary debt out there investor debt. So again that's between that and and Equus alone you're talking about directly to investors close to $18 million going back to investors (private lenders) at Ascend. We started that loan process at Ascend I'm going to say three and a half months ago. And typically  a HUD loan is one of the most aggressive types of loans. They give you the  highest LTV, in this case 87%. For comparison, on the Freddie or Fannie loan we're doing for Apex, we're going to be doing a 65% loan on Apex. That 65% loan is fine. Because our basis is so low at Apex, it should still return an extra half million dollars in cash to the fund, bringing the fund cash up to over $2.5 million. And HUD gives you a 35-year ammo instead of 30 years.  “Ammo” means amortization. So your payments are bit more affordable.
 

Bob Irish: Right.
 

Justin Ford: very aggressive on rate. The rate right now that we're looking at, again, it the market fluctuates a lot, but we're looking at as low as 4.5%, 35 year ammonization loan
 

Bob Irish: Wow.

Justin Ford: And that's what can permit… if we put some money in what's called a “buy down of the rate,”... we could get to $14.1 million. So,we've already got the appraisal. The appraisal was, I think, 16 million and something. So, that valuation is set. the third party appraisal, we got the phase one, we got the property condition assessment report, all that kind of thing.  We're going to do an updated SREO, which is a schedule of real estate owned. Once we've closed this refi,, we're showing greater cash in the fund. Anyhow, all HUD loans typically take six to seven months. So that hasn't been the issue there, but we're looking to close the HUD loan around April as well.
 
Justin Ford: That's what we're shooting for. So really really pleased that our operations have been really stellar at the hotels at the apartment communities and also at our shopping center in Port St. John.
 

Bob Irish: Right? Talk about that.
 

Justin Ford: So now support St. John we are 94% occupied. We have one single bay, 5,800 square feet. That's kind of our haunted bay.  that was the one that initially had a  when we bought it, it had some sketchy arcade in there. And then we leased it out again to what we thought was a non-sketchy arcade that
 

Bob Irish: Right.
 

Justin Ford: had six locations and they they turned out to be no good as well. No more arcades for us. And I told you in our last call in November that there was a dental practice I was looking for was going to pay premium  money for it. They're small chain I think. Well, not they're so small.
 

Justin Ford: I think they have maybe 20 locations or 13 or something like that. But I don't know word came down from corporate. They're holding off on the decision blah blah blah. But the other day we have Goodwill seriously interested in the place. So Goodwill is one of those, , secondhand clothing stores and so forth. I think Goodwill is a fairly large organization. So, they're looking at the place and should we get them or if the dental practice comes back in and we think there's a reasonable chance one of those two things might happen sometime this quarter we'll be at 100%. Right. And  and with our  u  with with the scheduled rent increases happening at certain certain  tenants as well. At the same time, we're now I think two two and a half months into our our contract to sell that our out parcel to a million dollars for Murphy's Oil. That's proceeding. Again, I keep that probability of 50/50 just because,
Bob Irish: Right.

 
Justin Ford: They have six they've only put $25,000 down. They have they have to do a lot of due diligence and research and because they're going to be spending a lot of money to develop that that parcel and redirect the storm water overflow., but I again if if it doesn't if it doesn't come to a fruition, we'll we'll just keep marketing it., if it does, it's it's almost mana from heaven. I mean, it's it's it's it's mana that we worked for, we contracted a civil engineer for, we contracted a broker with, came up with the idea and all that stuff. But, , but we we think there's reasonable chances that sometime this year we actually, , could close that and pick up an extra million dollars on this, , center that we bought for only $7 million. So  so yeah. Good things happening at Port St. John.
 

Bob Irish: Wow. Well, it sounds like a lot of money is coming back to investors over the next several months, Justin.
 
Justin Ford: Yes, that’s we've been working for. , we stabilized mostly in 2025. The one thing we're finishing now is Monarch. Operationally, we're performing well. Everything has stabilized. , just we're performing really well. We have a good team. We've learned, we’ve put systems and processes in place to support really good people. Our director of ops is amazing. Every single manager at our individual properties is really good. And our tenure for the most part is pretty good. They've been there for I don't know anywhere from like seven years to three years. Well we have one who's new who's extraordinary. One or two I guess. But the thing now is to combine that operational performance with the permanent refis in the fund and these bridge refi’s here in Tallahassee. I mean by mid 2026 this year, right around the summer, I think we're going to be in excellent shape both from a financial and operating perspective.
 
Bob Irish: So, it's great all this money is coming back to investors. Where are they going to put it, Justin?
 

Justin Ford: Well Bob, we will, we we have some thoughts. but we really focused on this. I haven't bought anything in… it's going to be four years. That’s because I've just been focusing on taking care of what we have.
 

Bob Irish: Okay.

Justin Ford: , we're hit with this environment. We're still dealing with two hotels that were hit by COVID. So again, I but I'm I'm looking, but I'm looking  kind of like a kid looking at a Christmas catalog, , but in March, . So,  around June or July, I think we'll start looking a bit more seriously. We'll start talking about opportunities at that point once all these refires are done, we have all that cash returned and and the monarch is even further along in
 

Bob Irish: Okay, cool.
 

Justin Ford: stabilization. But until then, by the way, we we do every now and then we have that waiting list,
 
Justin Ford: The 1%  a month notes. Sometimes we do use those for things like Monarch when we're finishing construction or something like that. It's not a lot. We might call on 200-300 a month or something only from the waiting list. You won't see us do a general offer of that. So, if anyone wants to get on the 1% a month waiting list, they can do that.  Because we're doing all these refis, these notes are only for six months with a six-month extension. and the extension, if we exercise it, is an extra point. So actually people can make up to 12.5% should we reach out to the waiting list.. Again, it's only in a waiting list mode right now so people can, , , send an email in to myself, Justin@paxproperties.com, and to my son Chris, Chris@paxproperties.com, and we'll put you on the waiting list in case we call a little bit of of that type of money.

Bob Irish: Sounds great, Justin. What a good call. Sounds like things are really moving along and  I'll look forward to catching up with you next month. Anything to add before we sign off?
 

Justin Ford: Just for all our friends in the north, they stay warm.  Hope you make it through this  icy time in good shape and  that's it. And we will definitely talk again  a month from now.
 

Bob Irish: Okay, Justin, good. See you next month.
 

Justin Ford: Yep. Thank you so much, Bob.