Arn Cenedella: Building Spark Investment Group from Coast to Coast

Bruce sits down with Arn Cenedella to trace his path from growing up amid Silicon Valley’s rise to building Spark Investment Group in Greenville, South Carolina along the I-85 corridor between Charlotte and Atlanta. Arn shares the lessons from buying his first East Palo Alto home at an 11.75% mortgage rate, the move to San Carlos, and eventually shifting capital to the Southeast where he could operate hands-on.

We dig into his investing framework: stay hyper-local, underwrite for cash flow and resiliency, keep low leverage and fixed-rate debt, and run properties with tight operations. Arn explains why sales volume froze post-2022 as rates jumped, how he pivoted to build-to-rent bulk buys from small builders in 2023–2024, and why he’s now back to selective ’70s/’80s value-add with tax-advantaged, affordable assets.

On the operations side, Arn credits partner Brian (Buildium, policy-first PM) for consistent collections and minimal evictions, and partner Dan (underwriting, accounting, tax) for disciplined modeling—freeing Arn to hunt deals and serve investors. He also shares his long-view take on cycles (bull runs, plateaus, retrenchment), why he’s bullish on U.S. real estate, and how onshoring/high-tech manufacturing can rebuild middle-income strength. Fun finale: pizza with Albert Einstein—and the surprising connection to Arn’s 1938 Greenville home.

 

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