Street Smart Success

The hardest part of being a passive, cash flow investor is knowing who you can trust with your hard-earned money and life savings. With so many operators and opportunities, it’s difficult to know what to invest in, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience. Currently, there are many Real Estate projects in big trouble with Limited Partners losing their investments as a result of poor underw...

The affordable housing issue persists in this country as homeownership becomes further out of reach for most people. One of the most viable solutions to this issue is Mobile Home Parks. Unlike common misperceptions of old, rundown parks with low-income tenants, many parks are in solid communities in great submarkets with modern amenities like pools, pickleball, kid’s play areas, and clubhouses.  T...

Although the competition to acquire most commercial real estate assets is fierce, there’s frequently less competition to acquire non-institutional Triple Net deals. Yet Triple Net deals are often offered at higher cap rates with stronger in-place cash flow and greater predictability for the long-term. These are great assets for cash flow investors that rely on consistent income to subsist on. Ben...

Amongst the popularity of Commercial Real Estate, Public Equities, Oil and Gas, and other common alternative asset classes, one asset class remains underneath the institutional radar. That’s Strategic Special Metals. Strategic Special Metals is an opportunity to invest in raw materials that are the underpinning of many of the world’s largest industries. Examples are Gallium, Indium, and Geranium,...

To invest in most multifamily projects, investors need to have accredited status. With Diversyfund, investors don’t need to be accredited to invest. For as little as $500, investors can invest in Multifamily funds. Since 2016, Diversyfund has had over 30,000 investors. 

The multifamily industry has made a lot of people a lot of money, but the tides have turned over the last couple years. The rise in interest rates and inexperienced operators drawn to potential riches including exorbitant acquisition fees have taken its toll with a lot of properties upside down and investors losing money. Sandhya Seshadri, Founder of Engineered Capital, is a Dallas-based multifami...

Finding under the radar Real Estate niches is extremely difficult, especially with the amount of information readily available online. One exception in today’s market is RV Parks. There are 1.2 million people that live full-time in RVs but there are only 600,000 pads for them to occupy when traveling.  In addition, 85% of RV parks are owned by owners who only own one park, and 50% don’t even have...

Getting higher than 10% cash-on-cash returns is close to impossible with most real estate investments. One exception to this is short term rentals. Short term rentals are a hybrid between owning typical residential housing and the hospitality business. Short term rentals require more management but can yield higher returns. Avery Carl, CEO of The Short-Term Shop, the country's top short-term renta...

As market rate apartments have become cost prohibitive to acquire over the past several years, ground up construction has become a more economically feasible option, especially with various federal, state, and local government tax credit programs. Lee Harris, President and CEO of Cohen Esrey, specializes in the development of 100-300 unit subsidized multifamily properties in the Midwest and Sunbel...

Trade globalization has created immense prosperity for the U.S. and the global economy. It’s literally lifted millions of people out of poverty over the past several decades. The Chinese economy, in particular, has transformed dramatically as a result of its trade with the U.S. Other of our trading partners have benefitted as well. As our partners have accumulated U.S. currency, they’ve invested t...

The U.S. single family home market is worth $43.5 trillion. Much of the country's wealth is concentrated in homes, making it the biggest asset class in the world. Over the years, investors have compiled portfolios of homes in markets all over the country that have generated strong monthly cash flow and huge appreciation. It’s nearly impossible to go wrong investing in single family homes in the ri...

Despite the escalation of asset prices over the past several years, there’s still great value In Midwestern tertiary markets. In multifamily, you can still buy properties for under $100,000 per unit that generates strong cash flow. Although these are small markets, many of them have strong and stable employment fundamentals, and therefore consistently high occupancy levels. Ross McArthur, Partner...

Amongst the many benefits of owning real estate, the ability to depreciate the assets and show a loss for tax purposes, is unique. With depreciation, and the option to further defer taxes through tax-efficient exchanges, you can compound your money dramatically over time with Real Estate. Erik Oliver, Vice President of Business Development at Cost Segregation Authority, works with tax professional...

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...

Multifamily is an easy business to understand, but hard to run. It’s a low margin business, so efficiency is critical, and lack of efficiency can bury you. Just barely moving the needle in leasing, for example, can translate into a huge impact on profitability. The same can be said of maintenance. Nothing adversely impacts tenant retention than slow maintenance response times or poor work. Multifa...

When deciding who to invest with, experience is what matters most, starting with the number of deals someone has done. Forty percent of Multifamily operators have done fewer than five full cycle deals. Like anything else, Real Estate takes years, even decades, to master. Elijah Brown, Founder of GoldHawk Capital, has first-hand experience operating multifamily. Elijah leverages this experience to...

Although the market for multifamily has taken a big hit over the last two years as interest rates have risen, lenders are extending loans and sellers are still holding out. Over the next couple years, this will change as lenders can no longer extend and sellers are forced to sell. This will likely present great buying opportunities, Over the past several months, there’s been net absorption as the...

One of the little discussed sectors of multifamily investing is townhomes. Townhomes are easier to build than large apartment complexes, and they have strong appeal to certain segments of renters. Townhomes appeal more to families and attract stable, higher income households. Tenants also tend to stay longer in townhomes than traditional apartments. Josh Green, Co-founder of Traverse Capital, has...

Over the past two years, multifamily has faced major challenges that’s resulted in price reductions of 25-35%. Class C in particular has taken a major hit in several markets, but Inflation has recently been tamed and expenses have been mostly stabilized. Solid operators are improving their daily operations and increasing occupancy and collections. Class C also still presents the best pricing value...

As demographics and lifestyles change, so do the requirements for where tenants choose to live. This is why architectural and design components for living spaces increasingly impact the desirability and value of residential properties. For example, the work-from-home trend and common areas have become more important as people are placing a higher priority on socializing where they live.  Kurt Volk...

Although much of the hospitality industry has rebounded from Covid, many hotels are stiff facing headwinds. What compounds this challenge is the requirement national brands place on operators to invest large sums of money into their properties to maintain certain standards. Many operators don’t have, or want, to invest this capital.  As a result, there is an enormous opportunity to acquire these p...

AI will change the world even more than the internet, with profound implications for all aspects of society. It will impact most aspects of commerce, including Real Estate. Amongst other implications, AI is creating an insatiable demand for Data Centers. Peter Lewis, Chairman and Founder of Wharton Equity Partners, has over 35 years of experience as a real estate owner, developer, and operator, an...

Although asset prices have declined over the past couple years, we still may see further reductions, especially with the possibility of another recession. If oil prices spike, or we have another major stock market correction, a recession will likely follow. As it stands, global instability, and the Middle East in particular, can cause a spike in oil prices that impacts the market. Domestically, we...

The national debt has climbed to nearly $35 Trillion dollars. Many economists believe this will produce unavoidable inflation and increased interest rates. As of this year, however, U.S inflation has been largely tamed and come back down to historical norms. This has largely been the result of global supply chains opening back up, and the overall impacts of globalization. Richard Duncan, author of...

There are many investment opportunities to generate cash flow, but few are as safe as low leverage Hard Money Loans against single family homes in strong markets. As long as you have an experienced operator who knows how to value the properties, vet the borrowers, and administer other aspects of the business, your investment will be safe, especially if it’s a conservative return. Michael Joseph, P...