Street Smart Success

Operating in your own backyard creates operational scale, competitive local knowledge, and access to better deals. All of these significantly reduce risk for operators and investors. Long-term holds of well-located properties in established markets, as well, adds to mitigating risk and heightening returns. Raj Khatiwala, Principal at Eclat Investments, specializes in New Jersey shore markets near...

When it comes to data sources in Real Estate, everyone has access to the same information, but there are ways to optimize utilization of the data to get higher returns. At Cadre, they’ve developed proprietary software that leverages much of the data available in the Real Estate industry to make better risk adjusted investments for their investors. Dan Rosenbloom, Chief Investment Officer of Cadre,...

In the Real Estate ecosystem, there are many capital raisers who bring money to developers in order to get projects off the ground. It’s their job to create value for both the developers and for entities such as family offices and Private Equity firms that are looking to deploy capital for strong returns. Nicholas Horsburgh, founder of Weld Capital Partners, helps developers underwrite, strategize...

If you want to earn more while working less, passive investing can be a step in the right direction toward earning financial independence. Many people still aren’t aware of the opportunities to invest directly in Real Estate and other related asset classes that provide monthly or quarterly income that have nothing to do with the stock market. Travis Watts, Director of Investor Education at Ashcrof...

Many seasoned Real Estate operators attribute their biggest past mistakes to debt. That’s why it’s so important to structure your financing appropriately in order to avoid devastating pitfalls and mitigate undue risk. Vernon Beckford, CEO of Diversified Lending Solutions, advises Real Estate operators in the complex world of debt in order to maximize existing lending opportunities and achieve the...

Leverage has helped a lot of multifamily operators generate great returns over the past five years, but many newer operators are now paying the price for too much leverage and higher interest rates. When underwriting deals, it’s critical do be overly conservative to account for realistic rent growth and growing expenses. Jordan Fisher, Principal of Next Wave Investors, incorporates ruthless conser...

Most real estate asset classes are efficiently priced and hard to find great deals. With land investing, however, you can buy land for literally 50 cents on the dollar with little competition. You basically just need to follow a formula that entails marketing and follow through. With very few start-up costs, you can launch a Direct Mail marketing program that gets you a deal in your first couple m...

In the world of multifamily, few operators are scaling with 2-15 unit buildings. These are too large for most ma and pa operators and too small for larger syndicators. Ray Heimann, Managing Director of Terra Capital, is acquiring older properties in gentrifying neighborhoods in midwestern cities with strong job and population growth. These properties are more labor intensive from a construction st...

If you’ve been looking to make passive investments in hard assets but are finding it difficult to get the returns you’d expect, there are other great vehicles that can generate 10 % or higher with relatively conservative risk. Business loans made to well-run, established and profitable businesses that are not served by traditional banks can provide an attractive risk adjusted yield. Jamie Shulman...

There aren’t too many asset classes within Commercial Real Estate right now where you can generate 10% or more cash-on-cash returns before creating extra value and executing a new business plan. One exception to this is campgrounds. There are approximately 15,000 campgrounds in the U.S. and many of them are filled to capacity during peak seasons. Several of these facilities are owned by ma and pa...

In supply constrained major metro markets with large employment bases, there’s always a strong rental market of young professionals who crave quality amenities. After the first Covid waves, we’ve seen rents come back in major metropolises and even exceed what they were pre-pandemic. Although there can be more brain damage dealing with challenges like regulations in these markets, prices have moder...

When it comes to underwriting, stick to your guns and don’t compromise or you may regret it. Even when you make conservative assumptions, expenses tend to rise and occupancy and rents typically contract when the economy goes South. Despite your best attempts at conservative underwriting, there are always surprises. Tim Bates, Partner at Worth Commercial Real Estate in Ft Worth, has returned an inv...

Today’s investing environment is fraught with many pitfalls. Over the last couple years, many multifamily sponsors in particular took on super high leverage with variable rate loans. These same sponsors are now encountering stiff challenges getting loan extensions because of lower occupancy and rental rates combined with higher borrowing costs. As a result, many of these sponsors will have to reac...

Real Estate can be an amazing investment to grow wealth. It has cash flow, appreciation, and tax advantages, but most Real Estate operators only allow accredited investors and request high minimums to boot. Accredited investors are individuals with gross income exceeding $200,000 or joint income exceeding $300,000 or have a net worth that exceeds $1,000,000 excluding the person's primary residence...

Not every mortgage is held by a traditional bank. There are a number of extenuating circumstances where banks won’t make loans to solid borrowers so borrowers need to find other alternatives. In these cases, there are private money lenders who will make these loans. Retail investors who are looking for yield can invest with these lenders who make loans to the end borrower. In doing so, these retai...

Many people don’t know you can invest directly into a large cash-flowing apartment building without having to be involved with the operations of the property. Until the past few years and even more recently, several high-income earners were only aware of the stock market as a place to invest money. Thanks to Multifamily Real Estate experts like Bronson Hill of Bronson Equity, however, mainstream i...

Not everyone that flips single family homes ends up flipping more than 3000 of them, and not everyone that gets into multifamily acquires over 7000 units within their first five years. Gideon Pfeffer, CEO and Managing Partner at the GSH Group, however, thinks big and has gotten unusual fast traction in the multifamily space, mostly in Michigan where he resides, since 2016. Gideon has built an in-h...

Everyone has a plan, but rarely do things go exactly the way we expect them to go. In multifamily Real Estate, there are so many variables when it comes to financing, interest rate fluctuations, property management, capital structure and so much more. In today’s environment in particular, there’s less margin for error with contracting rents and occupancy, higher operating expenses, and more expens...

After many years of a massive upward trajectory, multifamily real estate is facing headwinds, especially for older C and B class properties. In many markets, occupancy is starting to fall and rents along with it. In addition, many operators have taken on risky debt that they may not be able to service. As such, these operators may get into hot water in the upcoming months and be at jeopardy of hav...

Many operators specialize in a specific asset class, some operators specialize in a given geographic market, but invest across different asset classes. When you focus on one geographic area, it’s easier to build out a network of brokers and other contacts that consistently funnel you legitimate off-market deals where you can make real money. Rob Anderson, President at BV Capital in Dallas, invests...

Interest rates are higher than anyone expected a year ago and they’re continuing to rise. As a result, many purchasers of multifamily properties with high leverage bridge debt will not be able to get the extensions on their loans they anticipated and will be forced to refinance at rates the properties can’t support without injecting more capital. At this point, they’ll have to reach out to their i...

The West Coast is home to several multifamily markets but it’s becoming more onerous to be a landlord in these markets as a result of increasing regulatory restrictions. That’s why Max Sharkansky, Managing Partner of Trion Properties, is diversifying from the West Coast into the Southeast where there continues to be big migration from other parts of the country as a result of job growth, low taxes...

Taking a piece of land, envisioning a purpose for it, and bringing that vision to fruition is a large but exhilarating undertaking that also entails real risks. Even before you get the land entitled, you have to invest money in the zoning approval process, environmental studies, engineering feasibility, and other aspects that entail risk. Cowboy Joe Marquez has been involved in all stages of devel...

The biggest inhibitor to growing wealth is taxes. That’s why the best investing opportunity to-date is in Opportunity Zones where you can defer capital gains taxes plus avoid depreciation recapture, not to mention making great investments in transitioning neighborhoods with huge upside. Jimmy Atkinson, Founder of Opportunity Zone Database, created a database of over 300 Opportunity funds where inv...

90% of Alternative Investments are directly or indirectly placed in Real Estate. They can be great cash-flowing investments with high long-term appreciation. What they don’t provide is liquidity. You can’t get your money out whenever you want like a publicly traded stock. That’s why most financial advisors don’t recommend more than 20% of their client’s portfolios to be invested in alternative inv...