New MassLandlords Chapter to be Headed by ‘Product of Cambridge’ Sage Jankowitz

By Eric Weld, MassLandlords, Inc.

Sage Jankowitz, a real estate broker based in Cambridge, will assume the new role of managing a recently created MassLandlords chapter comprising the cities of Cambridge, Somerville, Malden and Medford.

Sage Jankowitz. Image: cc by-sa Sage Jankowitz

Jankowitz is ideally suited, in several ways, to manage the new chapter. For one, he’s a product of Cambridge, a status in which he takes great pride. Jankowitz has lived in and around Cambridge for most his life. “I was actually born in Cambridge,” touts his broker’s website. “I am named after a now-defunct [Cambridge] grocery store called Sage’s.”

Jankowitz, in his roles as real estate broker, property owner and manager, puts high value in the learning opportunities he encounters.

“I really like learning and staying on my toes,” he says about the necessity of keeping up with ever-changing real estate trends. “There’s always so much changing, rules and regulations, zoning. You constantly have to keep educating yourself.”

The new MassLandlords chapter is centered in an urban cluster with a heavy concentration of rental properties. All four of the host cities offer good prospects for growing the association’s membership.

MassLandlords Executive Director Doug Quattrochi agrees.

“Owners, managers, developers and brokers have to coordinate in these towns,” Quattrochi said. “The most challenging policy situations come out of this region because here real estate professionals are the least included. This must change and it is changing.”

Somerville and Cambridge have undergone dramatic growth in recent years. The Union Square redevelopment and main tower are visible at upper left. The tracks for the green line extension are just to the right of the tower. A dozen new buildings in Cambridge lead toward a reimagined Kendall Square. And all of this pulls residents into Malden and Medford behind the camera. CC BY-SA MassLandlords Paul Mong

In the Heart of Cambridge

After growing up on Pemberton Street in Cambridge, Jankowitz attended college at Emerson in downtown Boston. He lived on Beacon Hill for a time in college, and eventually returned to live in Cambridge. He currently lives in Central Square with his wife, Marissa Silataswan, and their 9-month-old daughter.

As a longtime resident, Jankowitz happily shares with his clients his deeply detailed knowledge of the city. “I can help if you need advice about the best dumplings in town, where to get 50 cent oysters by a roaring fire, or which cobbler in town will take A+ care of your leather boots.”

Jankowitz got his first exposure to real estate shortly after high school. While attending Emerson, he searched for an apartment. His roommates hated the frustrating process. “For me it was fun,” he said. “I was excited to look for a place. I just have a passion for this stuff. That was my first taste, but I’ve always had an interest in real estate.”

He joined Bigger Pockets, the online rental property investment resource, in his mid-20s and has always kept abreast of the rental real estate industry.

But before starting his real estate career, Jankowitz took a detour. He moved to Las Vegas for a spell after college, working in HR software sales. “I had a great experience there, and learned quite a bit. What I found was that I really enjoyed the sales piece. It became clear that sales is for me, it’s in my DNA. And I was always following real estate trends in the background.”

Jankowitz returned to Cambridge about six years ago, and joined the real estate brokerage RE/MAX Destiny, where he remains. As a broker, Jankowitz has focused mostly on rental properties.

“Landlords and multifamilies are my niche,” he says of his brokerage, “80% working with them, mostly in Cambridge and Somerville,” but also Newton, Brookline, Medford, Arlington and other communities.

Providing a Safe Space for Learning

 As manager of the new MassLandlords chapter, Jankowitz will help produce and host live networking and speaking events. He has already scheduled the former Medford building commissioner to speak, on March 19, at Bertucci’s. He looks forward to coordinating more events covering property investing, owning multifamilies, and many more topics.

“To me, this post is partly about education,” he said, “about providing a safe space, about getting quality speakers. It can be a lonely thing, being a landlord, trying to talk with other landlords about their experience.” He aims to create an accessible, welcoming space for landlords to learn, meet others and build community. “I’m hoping this chapter can be a place where people of all walks of life can be in an easy place to learn…not overwhelming.”

It’s his love of meeting and getting to know a spectrum of people that equips Jankowitz well for his career as a real estate broker, and the new managerial post.

“I love real estate,” he said, “but I also love the people behind it. I meet people from all walks of life.”

He loves the opportunities for growth and wealth that real estate offers investors. As an example, he tells of a family he worked with that migrated to the U.S. from China a few decades ago. Several years ago, the family wisely invested in a three-story building, with storefront property on the ground floor and residences on the second and third floors. “Then they bought another, then another,” Jankowitz recounted. “Now, they own and have bought and sold probably $6 million worth of property. It’s great to see people build wealth like that.”

Jankowitz and his wife are also beginning to build a property investment portfolio. They own a condo in Medford and are seeking to buy a multifamily. Their ultimate goal is to own 10 multifamilies, Jankowitz said.

Landlording in Cambridge

Being a longtime associate of MassLandlords has been an essential component of his education, Jankowitz said. “At the time I joined, I was a new agent,” he recalled. The first event he attended was an “awesome presentation by [real estate attorney] Adam Sherwin,” a highly rated MassLandlords speaker.

From that moment on, Jankowitz has appreciated the association’s value. “It’s just a great vibe, a great culture,” he said of MassLandlords, “very much a culture of learning. And from the start, it really felt like a safe space. Lots of integrity…that integrity is really hard to find.”

Learning is always among Jankowitz’s priorities. “I could talk your ear off for hours about what I’ve learned. But one of the biggest mistakes I see landlords make: they approach the job from an adversarial position, high rents, complicated leases, not fixing things, pushing the rules. What I’ve found is those landlords are the most stressed out, losing the most money.”

Conversely, he explained, landlords that he has seen building positive relationships with their tenants have much lower stress. “They’re genuinely trying to create a win-win,” he said, “a good housing relationship.”

From his perspective, Cambridge and its surrounding communities are an obvious place to build a new MassLandlords chapter. “Cambridge and Somerville are some of the most desirable areas for being a landlord,” he said. “You have a diversified tenant pool. Harvard and MIT are there, then there’s East Cambridge with its biotech and biopharma. It’s all accessible to the ‘T’, very well-located with some of the best areas to be a landlord.”

He acknowledges these Boston-adjacent communities can be expensive places to get started in property ownership. But once you invest the up-front capital, these cities are tough to beat for rental investment potential.

Jankowitz looks forward to imparting the benefits, challenges and intricacies of rental real estate ownership to MassLandlords members and others at upcoming chapter events.