A Few People Have Asked Me to Start a Q & a Thread About REI. Well, Here
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A few people have asked me to start a Q & A thread about REI. Well, here it is. I've been investing in RE for about 15 years. My father, stepfather, and uncle were all RE investors. Over the years I've done a little of everything. I've owned retail, warehouses, large and small residential rental properties, and rooming houses. I've subdivided land, had properties rezoned, moved houses, developed land, bought and sold and brokered RE notes, and just about everything else. I consider myself a buy and hold investor. Generally I don't flip and I don't really like to sell my properties unless I'm selling to move up to a larger investment. My primary investment type is in low income housing. I work closely with my local housing authority and other community service organizations. I own 48 apartment units, 4 single family homes, 3 duplexes, and one rooming house. I also own two mobile home parks - about 80 lots total. I employ one full time manager, two part time managers, and I contract cleaning and lawn care services with local companies. I'm also developing a manufactured housing subdivision. Right now I work about 18 to 20 hours per week. Well, I'm not sure if anyone will have any questions or not. Perhaps people have questions but don't know what to ask. Here are some general RE topics that I could respond to: Where to find the money for investments, or how much do you need to start? Estimating expenses Due diligence Buying property for 20% under fair market value comparing like investments hard money loans buying, selling, and creating paper Insurance issues investment criteria, cap rates, cash on cash returns, how to manipulate ROI Cash flow Literature Lease options mobile home parks credit issues finding & screening tenants, including fair housing issues Section 8 negotiating purchases finding deals dealing with tenants land banking Please don't ask me about taxes. Taxes are too difficult to cover in this forum. If you are interested to know more about taxes I highly recommend that you buy the book "Aggressive Tax Avoidance for RE investors" by John Reed. I recommend that you buy a financial calculator. they cost about $15 at WalMart. Every investor should have a financial calculator. something that a lot of people don't really understand about REI is that its not really about properties at all. Lots of people think that location is the most important part of REI. Its not. To paraphrase Donald Trump, buying the best locations and best properties won't make you successful in REI. Making the best deals makes you successful. Gorgeous properties in great locations are expensive, have negative cash flows, and will show small or 0% returns over time. What I look for is properties that other investors won't touch - rooming houses, run down apt complexes, half empty mobile home parks, that kind of thing. These are the properties that 1) are inexpensive and show decent returns over time as is, and more importantly 2) the investor can add significant value to by increasing the bottom line. What I want to do is buy a property that is underperforming due to bad management. I then transform the property by improving management, making improvements, increasing rents, filling the property, and lowering expenses. Remember that at a 10% cap rate, each additional dollar netted is equal to $10 in additional equity. So finding properties where we can add significant value is important to getting rich in REI. I'm getting tired right now, so I'm going to stop typing. I hope that this thread can help people get a better understanding of REI. I don't know everything about REI. But I know a little about a lot of areas of RE investing. General what kind of houses should you look to flip (i know u said thats not ur think) but just wondering do u know anything about it, and is this the worst time to try flipping with thw way the market is now? I'll start this answer by clarifying an absolutely FUNDAMENTAL issue in REI. RE investors do not make money over time. Well, they do, but that is not normally the primary focus. Successful RE investors make money when they BUY properties. You do that by buying for less than the fair market value of the property, OR by buying properties for fair market value and adding additional value to those properties. For anyone that doesnt' know, 'flipping' a house is the process of buying a property for realy cheap, fixing it, and reselling it at a profit. This works because normally houses that can be bought really cheap need some significant amount of work in order to be resold at any reasonable price. What is a signifcant amount of work? Well, normally flippers need to have some fundamental issue - foundation problems, termites, structural problems including roof, water damage, mold issues, etc. Those fundamental problems make the property essentially unsaleable. Theoretically the idea is to find properties that are in poor condition, but where market OVERVALUES the cost of the renovations. That way you can make renovations and there is still room for profit. Obviously flipping hinges on the ability of the flipper to resell the property later on. The best time to be a house flipper is the time at which there are lots of motivated sellers trying to get rid of properties. That time is now. I know what you're thinking - the market is real slow, i'll never sell my property. Not true. Granted, you may have to hold the property longer than you expected. But you will sell it. Just be sure to factor that longer holding period into your purchase price. Many successful RE investors make a business out of 'flipping' properties to themselves. They buy and fix, but rather than selling they refinance and rent. IMO, this is the best way to make money in RE. This is essentially what I do, just on larger properties like apartment complexes and mobile home parks I understand that low income neighborhoods provide the best cash flow but do you ever draw a line on a neighborhood being too rough? Would you typically shade away from areas that wouldn’t be the safest places to walk around at night? When looking at said neighborhoods do you look at the potential growth of the area and future appreciation gains? You're right - low income neighborhoods do provide the best cash flows. As to a neighborhood being too rough...I dunno. I've never rejected an investment because the neighborhood is too rough. Look, being a successful RE investor is very much about solving problems and being creative. If you find a killer deal in a very rough neighborhood, you gotta figure out how to solve that problem (which is likely why the seller is giving you such a great deal to begin with). So what might you do to solve the rough neighborhood problem? Well, you could carry a nonconcealed fire arm. You could also hire a uniformed off duty police officer to escort you on rent collections [note that in low income housing many of your tenants won't have bank accounts and cars so rent collections will have to be done in person and in cash]. I do consider the growth potential of areas as an aside when I analyze properties. However, my primary objective in REI is to buy income producing real estate. Potential growth and projected appreciation and stuff like that is all too esoteric for me. I prefer to make my money each month in cash and force appreciation by increasing the bottom line. That reminds me. Appreciation works differently for commerical property and residential property. Residential property (i.e., anything less than 4 units) is normally appraised based on comparable sales. Commerical property is appraised based on income, (i.e., cap rates, COCR, gross rent multipliers, etc). There are sometimes anolmalous situations where the commerical property market gets crazy and income/price ratios are insanely out of whack. Also I know it is crucial in REI to buy properties at under 30% of FMV but it just seems so hard to do. Obviously one isn’t going to stumble upon such places in the MLS system or loopnet. What motivates these sellers to sell their properties at such a discount and what would be the first step you take in finding them? Yes, it is hard. Thats why most people who start in REI get so sick of the meager returns and hard work and give up. As to seller's motivations, I've given up trying to understand them. The most common things that I see in motivated sellers are: people moving out of area, people retiring, people SICK of their tenants, problems w/ the property, lack of capital for improvements, bankruptcy. The best way that I'm aware of to buy property for less than FMV is to know other investors. Joining an REI club is so crucial to success in REI. At my club the first 10 minutes of each meeting are devoted solely to people annoucing deals that they have avaiable for sale. At last night's meeting I must have heard about 20 properties for sale well at 30% OR MORE below FMV. Sometimes the seller is a wholesaler and just wants to make a few bucks on flipping a contract. Sometimes its a seller that bought the house to flip and got caught up in other deals.