Street Smart Success

Prices on older buildings can look attractive but you get what you pay for. The biggest challenge with older properties is being able to project expenses. Properties from the 1960’s 70’s, and early 80’s tend to have a lot of deferred maintenance, especially the plumbing systems. Maintaining and replacing old plumbing is very expensive and can negatively impact the financial performance of the prop...

The state of Florida is continuing to see exponential growth, especially Central Florida. The markets of Tampa, Orlando, and Sarasota are adding jobs and population at an unprecedented pace. As a result, Real Estate rents and values have held up well, especially compared to other boom and bust markets. Evan Shields, Founder, CEO & Managing Partner of Indelible Capital Partners, started his com...

Even in deep recessions, Class B apartments are stable assets and generally withstand downward economic pressure. Class C apartments, on the other hand, pose significant risk because of unanticipated costs to repair and maintain these properties plus delinquencies that can exceed 20%. As a result of these Class C operational challenges plus higher interest rates, a lot of C Class operators are hav...

Unlike residential mortgages, commercial loans are vastly more complicated with thousands of different lenders with different lending guidelines and product types. As a result, the process can be overwhelming with a lot of potential pitfalls. Mitch Ginsberg,  CEO of Commloan.com, has created an easy-to-use technology platform which gives borrowers unprecedented access to 700 lenders and thousands...

With the cost of construction and borrowing costs rising, it’s become prohibitive to build new neighborhood strip centers with very few new centers built in the last fifteen years. As a result, occupancy levels at existing properties in growing markets is in the mid-high 90’s and sometimes even 100%. Contributing to recent high occupancy trends are professional service companies like retail insura...

40% of multifamily properties bought in Q 3 and Q 4 2020 and 2021 with variable rate debt will likely not get refinanced by their current lenders. In these scenarios, operators will be forced to attempt to raise more money via capital calls from their current investors and/or take on rescue capital from 3rd parties. The last option is to give properties back to the bank. Over the past couple years...

As inflation has taken a big bite out of renter’s pocketbooks, delinquencies on C Class apartments have increased, and prices on these assets have come down. In the next couple years, a lot of inexperienced operators who bought these properties and not significantly improved Net Operating Income, will have trouble getting extensions on their loans. This will result in great buying opportunities fo...

In most tertiary markets in the Midwest, there’s been very little new building of multifamily housing in many years. Therefore, buildings in many of these markets have very high occupancy levels. These markets also tend to have smaller, ma and pa management, so there’s a lot of opportunity to reduce operational costs and raise rents, thereby improving Net Operating Income and creating great cash f...

When making investments in Real Estate, the most important consideration is who you’re investing with. Proformas are always enticing, but the differentiator is the operator. More than the ability to judge the merits of a specific deal, a successful investors’ most important skill is being able to accurately vet operators. Matt Burk, Chairman of Fairway America, has consulted  hundreds of Real Esta...

Unlike most other asset classes, Mobile Home Parks and Self-Storage facilities have maintained almost all of their value despite interest rates having skyrocketed over the past year. Rents in both asset classes have stabilized, but not decreased. From an investment perspective, these asset categories are still highly fragmented with greater than 70% owned by individuals or families. Matt Ricciarde...

The most successful Real Estate investors determine when to invest in order to generate the highest returns. In a market where asset prices have skyrocketed, there are greater gains to be made in ground up development and land. In pursuing these opportunities, it’s critical to find the right people to execute the business plans. These projects require problem solving to the extreme, so the people...

Investing in single family dwellings and three to four-unit apartments can generate cash flow and appreciation, but they tend to be time consuming to manage.  If you want to better leverage your time and your capital, it can be more profitable to invest in larger syndications for economies of scale and better returns. Dan Rowley, a Real Estate principal and passive investor, has invested in over 2...

No matter what the economic trends, there’s always an opportunity to make money. You just need to see where the market’s heading. It’s not always in synch with the media and where everyone else is investing. Bob Fraser, Founder and Principal at Aspen Funds, has a very successful debt fund which has provided investors predictable, monthly cash flow for several years. Bob is also offering great oppo...

Contrary to all the success stories, Real Estate is a hard business that requires resilience in order to be successful. It’s not a matter of if things will go wrong, it’s a matter of what will go wrong and when, and how you deal with them. That’s why it requires grit in order to prevail in the long term.  David Mcillwain, Founding Partner & Managing Principal of MAC Assets, has learned from ha...

Operating properties directly makes sense for people who want to be hands-on in the daily operations of a property and who have the time and experience to be successful at it. There are many cases, however where people acquire properties and then encounter hidden challenges like bursting pipes, termites, cockroaches and other unforeseen headaches. That’s why many people are better off and able to...

Real Estate is a local business that requires intimate knowledge of a market. This knowledge, plus being an expert on the daily nuts and bolt of operations, mitigates risk. Further risk is mitigated by in-house management to make sure no corners are cut, expenses are managed tightly, and tenant maintenance requests are responded to promptly. With all these things in place, plus assets acquired pat...

It’s no secret that precipitously rising interest rates took many Real Estate operators by surprise, especially those who utilized shorter-term floating debt. As their loans are coming due and they’re being confronted with the reality of much higher rates, many operators are lowering or stopping investor distributions. Over the next several months and quarters, there are operators who will have to...

If you’re willing to be patient and methodical with passive investing, and avoid undue risk, the rewards will compound over time beyond your wildest expectations and change your life. It just takes delaying gratification, keeping your living expenses below your income, investing in quality assets that appreciate over time, and redeploying capital for continued growth. Today’s guest, Jeremy Roll, l...

Unless you have a very long time horizon, in which case time cures a lot of ills, being right on your timing will make you the most amount of money in Real Estate. Although Light Industrial has been white hot over the past few years with few attractive deals, prices are starting to moderate as loans are maturing, and larger institutions are starting to rebalance their portfolios towards more liqui...

Property management makes or breaks deals in every asset class, but no asset class is more challenging than large multifamily. There are so many people involved, and so many components to the operations, that things are always going wrong, and the risks are high. Surprisingly, there are not a lot of property management technology solutions for multifamily that address all functions within one app....

Many investors over the years have built portfolios of single family rentals that have ultimately enabled them to quit their jobs and build legacy income for their families. Single family homes in the right neighborhoods can always attract good renters and some stay for many years with not a lot of management required. Dustin Heiner, Founder of Master Passive Income, has built a portfolio of singl...

Atlanta is becoming “Hollywood East” as it’s become a hub of film production with over 200 film and TV projects per year. In addition to the film industry, Atlanta has a well diversified and rapidly growing economic base. Over the past several years, Atlanta has boomed in population with now over 6 million residents and housing units aren’t keeping up with population growth. Dr. Jason Balara has s...

The most recession resistant asset class in housing is Mobile Home Parks. It’s the least expensive housing option available, and it’s supply constrained because almost no new parks are being built. As an asset class, it actually appreciated during the financial crises of 2008-2009. Bryce Robertson, Founder of investcultiv8, buys smaller parks in the $2M - $5m range with up to 50% vacancy. Because...

There are many opportunities to by large apartment complexes in the middle of the country but certain coastal markets can have less risk. Large California coastal cities tend to stay consistent with high occupancy levels regardless of economic conditions. Rents can contract, but with conservative leverage, you can hold on to a property for the long run and rents come roaring back and with it massi...

There are many ways to making money in Real Estate but few require as little capital and take as little time to start generating cash as land flipping. By creating a mailer that goes out to land owners within a certain zip code, you can do your first deal within a matter of weeks, and the margins are typically anywhere from 50% to as high as 300% on smaller size deals. It’s common, for example, to...