Business Spotlight: Rising to the Challenge

The focus of the Valiant Group is wide-ranging and includes property management, real estate development and home rentals – but owner Josh Manning says he has a heart for revitalization.

“We want to revive older properties,” he says. “We take properties that are in need of love and care, and we want to make them nicer.”

In fact, many of the projects taken on by Manning and company came straight from the city’s list of blighted properties.

“I was born here, raised here, went to Kickapoo, went to Missouri State,” he said. “My whole life, this is my community, and I want to do my own part in making the community better through the skill set that I have.”

Since acquiring his first property in July 2020 – then as half of a team with Evan Ryan of the company Two Guys Buying Homes – Manning says the company’s portfolio has built quickly. Today, Valiant Group, which rebranded in early 2024, has almost 700 units under management, half of them owned by the company. Additionally, he says he has a rental portfolio valued at close to $50 million.

“All of those are properties that we bought that were either heavily distressed or we built,” he says.

Manning says he has a zest for tackling blight.

“It’s very challenging to do these blighted properties,” he says. “You have to know how to navigate working with the city, how to pull permits and make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed.”

While the work is hard, the results are extremely satisfying, Manning says.

“You drive down the street and there’s one house that’s dilapidated – that has homeless people or vagrants, drug use – and you’re able to fix that up and sell it to someone in our community that now is proud to call Springfield home,” he says. “Springfield has a lot to offer. A lot of investors other than myself are doing a good job of cleaning things up.”

With a team of 40 employees, plus contractors, Manning says the Valiant Group wants to do quality work.

“A lot of guys cut corners,” he says. “Guys like myself, we don’t cut corners. We want to turn over really good properties to good people.”

Difference-maker
Michael Rodhouse, owner of the 417 Rekey locksmith business, says he has worked with Valiant Group from the very beginning.

“I’m a fan of Josh. What he’s doing is great,” Rodhouse says.

Rodhouse says back in the Two Guys days, someone at the company called him to change locks on a few of the company’s rental properties.

“I got the vibe of how they roll,” he says. “It’s been neat to see the scope of how they’ve evolved and see what they’re doing for the city.”

Rodhouse notes he sometimes gets an eyeful when he’s called to change locks.

“Sometimes I’ll get called to rekey something that looks horrible, and I’ll be like, ‘What in the world?’ Then months later I get called back to that same address and the remodel has been done. The outside looks different; the inside looks modern,” he says.

Valiant Group transforms properties that seem hopeless into nice homes, Rodhouse says.

“It’s like sparks of light that are just slowly popping up in parts of Springfield that weren’t there before,” he says.

Juan Garza is a tenant whose rental property is managed by Valiant Group. Formerly homeless, Garza says community outreach agency One Door worked with Valiant Group to find an apartment for him and Midnight Shadow, his emotional support mastiff.

“Thank God they let me move in,” he says. “I love my little apartment – I’m happy there. I may not have nothing to eat, but I pay my rent and my dog’s got food.”

Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, Garza says he and Midnight Shadow take the bus from True North Apartments on South Douglas Avenue to sell plasma near the Valiant Group headquarters. He always stops in for a cup of coffee and to visit with the office staff, who love to pet his dog.

“They’re really good people,” he says.

Problem-solving
While property management is a big part of the day-to-day work for Valiant Group, Manning says he particularly enjoys development, especially when he gets to solve a puzzle.

An example is downtown loft apartments at 806 South Ave., a historic brick apartment building downtown. It was a project that melded the house’s historic features with modern finishes. The Valiant Group website notes, “Today, 806 South Ave. stands as a symbol of our commitment to providing great homes to great people and serves as a beacon of revitalization in the heart of Springfield.”

Set to open in 2025 in south Springfield is the Holland Park Apartments complex, with three buildings erected on stilts alongside the South Creek Greenway Trail.

“That was the only way to get it out of the floodplain,” Manning says, adding his team even constructed a duck house on the property to accommodate some of the wildlife.

Just off National Avenue at Pacific Street, Pacific Station is taking shape as another example of the company’s commitment to improving the city.

“It was a junkyard of cars and three blighted houses,” he says.

Manning says a flat piece of ground that presents no challenges may be desirable to some developers, but it takes the fun out of the process for him.

“I found my niche in taking properties that are pretty far gone and breathing new life into them,” he says. “I like finding the problem properties and figuring out how we can put in something that’s good for our community.”