November, 2022
Does email reach you? Here I am, sending emails out to everyone but I’ll be the first to acknowledge that not everyone prefers emails, or even reads them. My kids are in their 20’s and do read their emails but don’t usually use them for most communications like I do. In fact, they treat emails like a letter that says “Official Business”. If nothing else, I am all about watching, listening, and learning, and clearly different people have different communication preferences. So I am starting to use them more. LinkedIn is like the Grand Daddy of business communications, but younger
January, 2023
Real estate investors are excitable people. It’s hard for me to contain my excitement for upcoming opportunities in the market. I was for the most part an investor through the 2008 great recession, although I didn’t actually invest prior to that. I intended to, had partners lined up, and actively looked for multifamily properties, but didn’t pull the trigger on anything. That was just dumb luck. I didn’t have a crystal ball and saw the price declines coming, I just didn’t see any good opportunities. After the recession, trends were not suddenly all pointing higher. Many smart people said this tragedy was not
December, 2022
Where are you finding opportunities in multifamily today? I’m reading that deal volume has dropped off a cliff. Clearly the buy sell dynamic has changed. Is it that owners who want to sell are holding properties off the market? Or do sellers still have expectations that buyers will pay for proforma? Does the property need work to get it to stabilization? You’re looking at bridge loan at 8-9%. You need a highly probable path to meeting NOI targets, and most likely little to no income until then. How sure you are you the market rents are substantially higher? Did you
October 2022
John, What will your investments be worth in five years from now? Waitaminute … five years? Who wants to wait that long? We all do. Because that’s the real question real estate investors should be asking. Not “Can we 2X this property in 2 years”, which is what many of us have been asking. It is what we’ve been accustomed to, but that’s not today’s reality. Do you look at today’s interest rates and low loan-to-value ratios as “No thank you, I’ll wait until conditions stabilize”? If you do, thank you, and join the crowd, especially if you’re a buyer! Now hopefully fewer
September 2022
How do you approach someone in a networking environment? We know that real estate investing is a team sport, so we need to get out there and meet people, but what’s the most effective way to do that. I’ve been taught to introduce myself, ask them questions, look interested. That’s fine, but two people are talking already – do I just step in and interrupt? Stand by and listen? Or only seek out individuals standing alone? If you’re at a conference for real estate, there’s a lobby, and people are talking in the lobby, they want to meet people – you.
August 2022
Do any of the red-hot markets look scary to you today? As investors we have to keep our crystal balls shiny because projecting into the future is required. What trends and events will affect our investment, both local and national. Which sources of data are reliable. And what metrics should we be tracking. Markets like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Tampa have clearly been red-hot but may be poised for changes. Zillow says some of these cities saw the biggest shares of price cuts for single family homes over the last three months, and days on market, a key indicator of buyers’ willingness to pay