In December of 1972 Nathan made his first investment when he was just twenty years old: a single-family house several blocks north of the University of Florida’s Law School. He substantially offset his college expenses by living upstairs and renting out the downstairs and personally doing most of the maintenance. For the next seven to eight years, Nathan continued to buy houses within walking distance of the University of Florida at the rate of three or four a year, using every “no money” down technique in the book. Nathan’s father, a civil engineer, had raised him to be hands on with a DIY (Do It Yourself) approach. As a result, Nathan was a pretty fair jack of all trades handyman and was able to do most of the maintenance on his houses
By 1980, Nathan was up to 25 or so rental homes and realized “that dog don’t hunt,” or in business terms – it was not a scalable business model. Each home was unique with plumbing fixtures and appliances and had to be shown individually and while occupied. Pivoting, Nathan began to focus on the College Park neighborhood just north of the University of Florida where, employing the same low/no down owner financing techniques, over the next decade he was able to cobble together an institutional sized apartment community consisting of dozens of separate developments spread over a neighborhood. This formed the basis for what is now The Collier Companies: a portfolio of 12,000 Apartment Homes with a commitment to doubling in size in the coming decade through new development.
From the very beginning, Nathan was committed to The Collier Companies being a different kind of company, one that embraced the Social Contract concepts of cooperation/interdependence and mutual respect and was committed to sustainable Principled Profit and Main Street America values, best understood as the complete opposite of Wall Street’s short termism/beggar thy neighbor/greed is good ethos.
Feeling that The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People encapsulated many of these concepts, Nathan embraced 7H as the cornerstone of our company culture and new Team Members are given a copy and asked to read it in their first 90 days and write a short reaction paper sharing their insights and thoughts.
What We Do
The Collier Companies is an owner, manager and developer of apartment communities based in Gainesville, FL. Beyond our philosophical foundation of Servant Leadership; our Business Model is unique in three respects. In an industry where short term holds (3 to 7 years) are the norm, we hold for the long term. This adds wonderful stability to our portfolio and our team and we continuously reinvest in our communities to keep them competitive. Second, we are privately held by a single individual and believing our efforts add equity value, we self-manage and manage only what we own. Third, we are self-funded and maintain a strong, liquid balance sheet; we do not seek or need outside equity. This, combined with private ownership allows TCC to think long term, be flexible and move fast to take advantage of targets of opportunity.
Art of the Long View
In business, everyone wants to be a winner, to be an Alpha Dog, in the Top 1%. TCC shares that ambition but our definition is slightly different. We just want to be in the Top 25%… EVERY YEAR FOR 25 YEARS! And that will easily put us in the top .1%
TCC’s Mission Statement was created in the early 2000’s in Manhattan at a Team Member brainstorming flip chart session and reflects our core values. A person’s home is central to their life, it is a place of rest, relaxation and renewal, far more than just four walls and a roof, it also connects to their emotional and spirit wellbeing. We are honored that our Customers entrust us with providing their homes and consider it duty to be fulfilled; one that gives noble purpose to our work.
We are committed to being life long continuous learners and on going Book Clubs are a TCC tradition.
Nothing Down: Buying Real Estate When You Have No Money
In December of 1972 Nathan made his first investment when he was just twenty years old: a single-family house several blocks north of the University of Florida’s Law School. He substantially offset his college expenses by living upstairs and renting out the downstairs and personally doing most of the maintenance. For the next seven to eight years, Nathan continued to buy houses within walking distance of the University of Florida at the rate of three or four a year, using every “no money” down technique in the book. Nathan’s father, a civil engineer, had raised him to be hands on with a DIY (Do It Yourself) approach. As a result, Nathan was a pretty fair jack of all trades handyman and was able to do most of the maintenance on his houses.
By 1980, Nathan was up to 25 or more rental homes and realized “that dog don’t hunt,” or in business terms – it was not a scalable business model. Each home was unique with different plumbing fixtures and appliances and had to be shown individually and while occupied. Pivoting, Nathan began to focus on the College Park neighborhood just north of the University of Florida.
Purchasing an Apartment Community on the Installment Plan; primarily with No Money Down
In 1980, College Park was a neglected, blighted neighborhood with dilapidated housing. Nathan began to “farm” the area, going down to the Property Appraiser’s office, looking up owners on microfiche (this was long before the internet), creating a community newsletter that informed other owners about City or neighborhood issues that impacted their properties and calling regularly, soliciting support. As a result, when folks decided to sell, Nathan was a natural buyer and over a decade, mainly utilizing low/no down owner financing, was able to put together an apartment community of institutional size, howbeit scattered over a neighborhood.
The Shey Portfolio
It is hard to overstate the importance to the future of The Collier Companies of the slow, patient, decade long assemblage of College Park. Most apartment communities of institutional size (300+) trade north of $50M and private individuals without inherited wealth do not generally get to buy at that level. College Park became the foundation for an era of rapid growth, still bootstrapping with “innovative financing”. A primary example was acquisition of The Shey Portfolio in 1998, 1400+ apartment homes: $100 Million Valuation with just $1 Million down i.e. 99% leverage.
Partnerships and Development
While Nathan personally owns the vast majority of The Collier Companies portfolio, during this decade The Collier Companies formed their first institutionalized partnerships with companies such as JP Morgan Chase, The State of Utah Retirement System, Sterling American (investment arm of the then owners of the Mets), and GMAC as well as SEB, a Scandinavian pension fund. In addition, The Collier Companies also built Highlands at Heathbrook, 320 apartment homes in Ocala in the summer of 2004 as well as Phase IV of Arlington Square followed by The Enclave in 2008, 412 apartment homes in Gainesville. Phase II of The Crossing at Santa Fe came next, an additional 168 3/3 apartment homes adding to the existing 168 4/4s.
Fortified During the Recession
Coming out of the Great Recession of 2008, The Collier Companies overcame twin challenges. The Collier Companies had re-capitalized by selling off 80% of two of our largest, premier communities and also, most of our other partners had reached the end of their hold periods and wished to sell the communities they co-owned with us. Fortunately, TCC was able to raise the capital to buy back more than half the selling communities, reducing our Core/Partner ratio from an all-time high of 70/30 to 92/8 by 2021.
The 2X Challenge: To Double in Size in the Coming Decade via Development
When TCC completes 2X, we will be in the Top 50 apartment owners in America. After that: 4x! To achieve 2X, The Collier Companies needs to have a minimum of 4 three hundred plus apartment home communities in regulatory/permitting, 4 under construction and 4 in lease up/stabilization. In our quest, The Atlantic, 310 apartment homes in Port Orange was delivered in the Fall of 2021. BLVD 2600 (336 homes) in Maitland, Hawks Mill (360 homes) in Daytona Beach, Sorrento (300 homes) in Sarasota, Cordova (322 homes) in New Smyrna Beach, Monarch (336 homes) in Fort Myers and Atlantic One (304 homes) in Pompano Beach are coming up soon and developments in Artisan Lakes/Palmetto and Orlando was well.
Nathan S. Collier founded The Collier Companies with the intent to create a different kind of workplace – one with a true sense of community, a place that is a joy to live and work, and a place where Team Members truly care about each other as individuals and demonstrate that every day, in part by the depth of their commitment to quality, excellence and customer service. As a lifelong student, he also wanted to create an organization centered around learning and personal and professional growth.
Mr. Collier annually co-teaches within TCC a 10-week long program called Collier College sharing the intricacies of real estate investing as well as the life management soft skills necessary to be successful in any field of life such as emotional intelligence, decision making, goal setting, time/energy management, motivation, and communication.
Nathan has endowed the Nathan S. Collier Master of Science in Real Estate program through UF’s Warrington College of Business and teaches case studies every year. Nathan has also taught adjunctly at UF’s Levin College of Law where he previously earned his Juris Doctorate degree, and given commencement speeches for UF’s Warrington College of Business in 2010 and 2018.
In 2019, Nathan S. Collier founded The Collier Prize for State Government Accountability through UF College Of Journalism and Communications. Collier also serves as a member of Columbia University’s Columbia Journalism Review Board of Overseers.
In 2024, Nathan founded The Peter F. Collier Award for Ethics in Journalism, an accolade recognizing student and professional journalists who uphold the highest ethical standards despite facing significant pressures or incentives to compromise. The award is administered by the NYU Carter Journalism Institute’s Ethics and Journalism Initiative (EJI), underscoring its commitment to fostering integrity and accountability in the field of journalism.
With over a thousand posts, Nathan also blogs twice weekly on personal and professional growth at NSCBlog. His tag line on every post is ‘I share what I most want and need to learn.’
To learn more about Nathan S. Collier, please visit his blog by clicking on the logo below.