About Seth Bame
I'm Co-CEO of Savoy Companies in Dallas, Texas. I run the side of the business that has to work every day: property management, construction, budgets, people and systems.
My story
I did not come from real estate. I started by cold calling and selling investment properties, and I learned the apartment business from the outside in. In July 2011 I bought my first building, Marquita Court, a 24-unit property built in 1930 in Dallas. For about two and a half years I had no employees. I leased the units, did the accounting, handled the maintenance calls and managed the residents myself.
My first two hires were a property manager and an accountant. That accountant still runs our accounting today. Around the same time I met Barrett Linburg. He was a mortgage broker who hired me to manage his properties, and I hired him to arrange debt on mine. We became partners not long after.
The company grew fast, to roughly 25,000 units under management at its peak. Then we deliberately pulled back. The systems had not kept up with the scale, and I would rather run fewer units well than more units badly. Rebuilding those systems from the ground up became my job, and it still is.
In 2026 we brought our three businesses under one name. The property management company, the construction company and the ownership company are now Savoy Residential, Savoy GC and Savoy Equity, together known as Savoy Companies.
Work
Savoy is a vertically integrated multifamily platform: we develop, build, own and manage apartments in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Lubbock and Paris, Texas. As Co-CEO I own execution: property management performance, construction oversight, budget discipline, staffing and the operating systems that tie it together. Barrett owns capital, investors and growth. We wrote the split down, and I think that is the only reason a two-CEO structure works.
We started our own general contractor after a third-party GC on two large jobs turned out not to be carrying the insurance it claimed. Bringing construction in-house was the decision that made the platform vertically integrated, and it changed how we underwrite everything we build.
I am a licensed Texas Real Estate Broker and have been a general partner in more than $1 billion of multifamily projects. I am a member of the National Apartment Association, the Texas Apartment Association and the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas.
The Savoy Operating System
The project I spend the most time on is software. Property management runs on a pile of disconnected apps, and every one of them charges per unit. We are replacing that stack with a single system we build ourselves. There should be one simple app for everything, not a hundred. I am not an engineer, so my job on the build is product, screens and business rules, and I write down what should happen when every button is pressed. A lot of what I publish here is what that work has taught me about AI and operations.
Personal life
I live in Dallas with my wife. I studied at the University of Colorado. I am also a co-owner of Village Baking Co. in Dallas. Outside of work I like real estate, skiing, surfing and pretty much anything outdoors.
Curious what I'm focused on right now? See what I'm working on now.