Joshua Shatz, owner of the Dallas-based company, has professionals on the ground in London, Baku, Kiev and Moscow. Shatz, who immigrated to Dallas in 1992 from Russia, is pushing a plan to marry foreign and domestic equity and debt to value-add propositions in the US and Eastern Europe.

Shatz tells GlobeSt.com that he has foreign backing from hedge funds and private institutional investors to fuel a plan targeting class A and class B multifamily properties in Texas, North Carolina, New Mexico and Colorado. He says he's interviewing several well-known local brokers to join him to build a sales arm.

The investment list also includes land, with retail and unfinished developments part of the long-range plan. Shatz says he's also fielding "tremendous interest from US hotel owners with eyes for Eastern Europe and looking for partners to "navigate the local waters." In addition to the US, assets are being primed for investment, whether it's recapitalization or acquisition, in Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg and Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

Shatz got grounded in the multifamily business through the late Don Ostroff, working at his side to structure financial packages for the powerbroker's deals after he put his homebuilding company, Custom Properties, on the backburner. Shatz most recently worked with Brian O'Boyle, another powerbroker in the region and head of Apartment Realty Advisors' Dallas shop.

Shatz says the US capital markets' turmoil has opened the investment door so he's revived his company as an intermediary to place capital for US and foreign investors. Custom Properties' lineup ranges from "plain vanilla bridge loans" to longer-term debt.

"We are very opportunistic. There are going to be numerous opportunities in class B as loans mature and tremendous difficulties in gauging the debt," Shatz stresses. "Sometimes deals don't get done because people don't think out of the box."

Shatz stresses that the strategy isn't cap rate-based, but investments for seven- to 10-year holds in high-density markets. He says the investment pool's capital ties are in London, Israel, Russia and the US. The minimum deal size is $10 million for US investors and $40 million for foreign players, with no cap on the high end, according to Shatz.

"There is increased interest due to the decreasing value of the dollar to invest in properties that are stable. This is an opportunity to capitalize on the short-term weakness of the dollar," Shatz says. "If in two weeks I have been able to generate a $250-million book of business, I think we can be quite successful."Shatz is using the drawn-out capital markets' disarray to build a base that will carry on long after the recovery. "We're used to turbulence," he says about his pool of foreign investors. "It's an opportunity for us because we can provide financing that no one else can."