Street Smart Success

In the world of Real Estate finance, property owners can end up in arrears on their existing payments. In these cases their debt may be sold off to other lenders. In other cases, borrowers may not be able to obtain conventional financing for various reasons. In either of these cases, borrowers may wind up utilizing specialty lenders who help them solve their problems. Carson Rasmussen, Principal a...

Even with the market changing with respect to debt challenges and interest rate increases, there’s still opportunities in the Value-Add apartment space long-term prosperity. As prices come down 10-15% and possibly even more over the next several months, there will be great opportunities to buy right and generate big value. The demand for rental housing persists, so the prognosis for multifamily bu...

Higher quality assets appreciate more in the long run, especially in supply constrained markets where it’s hard to build and there’s no more developable land. It’s simple, scarcity produces value. Even in recessions, quality construction assets hold their value better lesser assets in worse locations. Lior Rozhansky, Founder of Flora Capital, has pivoted from working class neighborhoods in Boston...

There’s no secret we have a housing shortage in this county and the problem will persist as it stays prohibitive to build new housing units for a number of reasons. This is one of the factors that’s contributed to the trend towards converting older motels into garden style apartments. Ross Hubbard, Co-founder of Sage Investment Group, has been acquiring older motels from the 80’s and 90’s and conv...

The biggest aggregate asset class in the world is the U.S. single family housing market. That’s why the health of this asset class has such a large impact on the broader U.S. economy. Over time, single family homes in most markets have been one of the most predictable, conservative investments you can make. In most ten-year periods of time, home values have almost always gone up in value. Rich Fet...

As interest rates have risen dramatically, asset prices have declined. The question on everyone’s’ mind is how much more they’ll fall and what’s the best investment strategy to be positioned for capital preservation and growth. One strategy that’s gaining more traction is investing in debt. Debt typically pays a predictable preferred return and is a conservative way to keep pace with inflation and...

For investors in single family homes, auctions can be a great place to find deals. When homeowners can’t pay their mortgages, lenders will take back the properties and often put them up for sale at auction where investors can pay 25% less than the estimated value of the home, and sometimes even less. Daren Blomquist, VP of Market economics at Auction.com, discusses the macro state of the market an...

Real Estate tends to go up over time and most newer investors have never experienced a downturn. There are periods, however, when Real Estate has come down in value and we’re quite possibly heading into a contracting environment currently. Joel Friedland, Principal of BRIT properties, only buys properties with all cash. Most of the challenges he had in 2008-2011 was the result of debt and declinin...

The short-term rental space has exploded and turned into a formidable industry. Many successful owners are getting cash-on-cash returns in excess of 20%. At the same time, some markets have gotten over saturated, especially with two-to-three-bedroom dwellings. In the luxury end of the market, by contrast, there’s way less competition and many different uses for the properties like golf buddy outin...

In the world of multifamily Real Estate, the returns can be lucrative in heavy value-add projects. These opportunities also comprise the highest level of risk. Sometimes, the best opportunities are steady, workforce Class B apartments with high occupancy levels that will be resilient in economic downturns. Camilla Jeffs, Founder and CEO of Steady Steam investments, is a long-time real estate inves...

When looking for yield, money from the coasts often winds up in other parts of the country. Great markets like Chicago offer better yields, and still offer very strong fundamentals for investors that provide cash flow and appreciation. Danny Spitz, CEO and Managing Partner at Greenstone Partners, helps serve the needs of private and institutional investors with a focus on $2,000,000 to $40,000,000...

A 3 or a 4 cap in one market is not always equal to a 3 or 4 cap in another market. The risk profile is greater in markets where there’s fewer regulatory challenges and lower barriers to entry in developing new projects. In California, and other West Coast markets, on the other hand, regulations and restrictions are far more onerous, so these markets are perpetually supply challenged, and therefor...

If you know how to manage lower income tenants and how to optimize the management of older properties, you can do extremely well. Many of these properties have ma and pa owners with under market rents and bloated expenses. On the supply side, there just aren’t enough of these properties for tenants to live in and there’s been very little new construction in many markets. As a result, occupancy lev...

In the last five years, value add multifamily deals have abounded where you can buy a building at under significantly market rent, put $5,000- $10,000/unit into rehab, and sell within 12-24 months at a huge profit. As more and newer competition has entered the market, and as prices dramatically increased, these opportunities have become much harder to find. In addition, renters in these properties...

When things go wrong in a smaller apartment deal, it can wipe out all the Net Operating Income and profit in the deal. On bigger deals over 100 units, the property can absorb a lot more unexpected costs or mistakes before it erodes all the profit. Augostino Pintus, founder of Realty Dynamics Equity Partners in Cleveland, realized early on that it was much easier for him to operate bigger buildings...

After owning three Assisted Living homes in Phoenix, entrepreneur Gene Guarino created the Residential Assisted Living Academy in 2013 to train others to prosper like he had from the mega-trend of senior Assisted Living. The Residential Assisted Living Academy has since trained thousands of individuals to either start their own facility or acquire existing facilities in towns across the U.S. Last...

With all asset classes priced at historically high levels, you may need to be open to different opportunities to find the right deal. When you expand your criteria, you’ll have more deals presented to you. The more deals that come across your desk, the more good deals you’ll find. Keith Nelson, Managing partner of Dual City investments Greenville, SC, started in multifamily back in 2014, but has p...

According to The Family Office Real Estate Institute, a Family Office is a family with $250 Million to deploy in investable assets. There are 7500 in the U.S. and 16,000 in the world. 70% of families lose their money by the second generation and 90% lose it by the third. This is why family offices need expert advice on how to preserve and grow their capital. DJ Van Keuren created the The Family Of...

It’s hard to achieve economies of scale operating multifamily apartments with fewer than 100 units, but if you buy smaller buildings close to each other, you can gain operational efficiencies that translates into more profit. There’s also far less competition when buying these properties that bigger properties so you can often get better deals. Mark Weinstein, President of MJW investments, has acq...

What is a Family Office? The term “Family Office” has become more common over the past decade and the number of Family Offices is growing at a fast clip. A Family Office is a private  wealth management  advisory firm founded by an ultra- high-net-worth individual or family to manage their assets. Ultra-high-net-worth families or individuals (UHNWIs) are  people with at least $30 mil...

In this environment, certain multifamily housing markets are seeing an 80% decrease in transaction volume vs. a year ago. Even though interest rates have increased way more than anyone predicted as recent as 6 months ago and operating expenses are increasing, sellers are still holding out for what they could have gotten in previous months. Eventually, some sellers will have a more pressing need to...

Although interest rates are on the rise at a faster clip than at any other time in recent history, the fed has historically lowered rates within two years following the past ten rate hike peaks. This is one of the reasons that over a long period of time, multifamily apartments are a resilient and safe asset class to invest in, especially in growing markets. J Scott, a multifamily investor, owns si...

Sometimes adding value to properties has more to do with intangibles such as improving resident culture and building a sense of community than merely improving the physical assets of a property. When residents derive quality of life benefits from residing at a community and take pride in where they live, they’ll see more value in the experience and be willing to pay more to live there and take bet...

In this investing environment, it’s difficult to get an 8% to 10% yield on your cash and still achieve appreciation, without taking a lot of risk. With stabilized neighborhood retail, however, and office buildings in certain markets, this is still possible with the right deal, and especially the right operator. Nate Melchior, Principal at Dunton Commercial, manages a portfolio of 70 mid-size retai...

There’s great money to be made in government subsidized, affordable housing. Occupancy is generally high and tenancies can last for years. It’s a recipe for steady, predictable income and high margins. On the management side, however, there can be challenges figuring out how to manage lower income, working class tenants and do it at a profit. Mike Bonadies, Co-Owner and Managing Partner at TerraVe...