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National Rent Control, Falling Mortgage Rates, and Fleeing Homebuyers

National Rent Control, Falling Mortgage Rates, and Fleeing Homebuyers

A new nationwide rent control proposal could cap rent increases for any landlord with a certain amount of properties. But will it actually pass? How would landlords survive when rents can only marginally increase each year while expenses continue to see double-digit percentage price growth? We’re getting into this story and a few more hard-hitting housing market headlines on today’s episode!

First, we’re talking about the new rent cap proposal coming straight from The White House. This could significantly affect anyone who owns a large real estate portfolio or plans to in the future. Is this proposal merely a grab for votes, or could it actually come to fruition? Next, great news for homebuyers, as mortgage rates fall once again, all while completed homes see a sizable boost. Is this a sign that a healthier housing market is to come?

Why are international buyers fleeing the US housing market? Could this end up helping first-time homebuyers who have to fight off less competition? Finally, we talk about the twenty hottest housing markets that are seeing a BIG increase in home viewership. If you own a home in one of these markets, it might be time to consider selling.

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Kathy:

You may have heard that the real estate world is going into a frenzy over a new White House proposal that would cap rent prices. But is it likely to ever see the light of day? Are home buyers going to be encouraged after a fall in fixed rate mortgages? And what are today’s hottest markets? We’re covering this and more on today’s show.

Hello, I’m Kathy Fettke, one of your hosts today while Dave Meyers is out. Welcome to On the Market. I’ve got Henry Washington and James Dainard here with us today.

James:

Hello guys. Good To see you guys.

What’s going on Kathy, how are

Kathy:

You excited? We’re kind of jealous. I think Dave is on a beach somewhere in south of France. He deserves

James:

It. They got no service on the south of France. Beats. Yeah,

Kathy:

Well today we will just do our headline show without him. We’ll miss him though. This is a show where we pull four headlines from the news cycle and discuss how they impact investors so you can make informed investing decisions. Today we’re discussing a White House proposal to cap rents nationwide, a drop in fixed rate mortgages, international buyers pulling away from the US market and the 20 hottest markets in the country right now. But before we get into it, make sure to hit that follow button on Apple or Spotify to make sure that you never miss an episode and let’s get into it. Alright, the first headline is from the New York Times and it is the White House plan to limit rent increases nationwide reignites debate. And the key points are a new Biden proposal aims to withdraw tax credits from landlords who raise rent by more than 5% a year. It applies to investors with more than 50 units and new construction seems to be exempt. Now economists are pushing back saying that rent caps end up hurting the tenant in the long run because it limits the quality of rentals out there and it doesn’t incentivize new construction for sure. So guys, what do you think? Do you think this is ever going to pass?

James:

Well, I hope it doesn’t pass. We already deal with regulation up in Washington pretty drastically, and I think what’s going on is there’s this affordability crisis and they’re trying to figure out what to do. And I think this is more of an election headline than anything else. I think at the end of the day it’s going to come down to the state that you’re investing in. I do believe that the states that have more rent control and we’re definitely feeling it up in Washington, there’s a lot of legislation moving around. It’s constantly evolving where it’s protecting the tenant more that it’s going to continue to go that way. And I think I know as far as what I’ve looked into for the last year or two is what markets can I start also investing in to just kind of hedge against it? But I do think it is going to continue on the states and they’re going to keep pushing more and more rent control and it’s something that you really do need to forecast out.

Is your market worth dealing with the regulation or not? And the only people that can decide that is you as an investor. For me, it makes sense. We can buy value add, we can create equity and the headache’s worth it for us. But I think you do need to head in. And I don’t think federally, they’re going to be kind of rolling this out everywhere. I think it’s more of a headline. It’s kind of like the student loan forgiveness. It’s just like throwing free money at people to try to get votes. And so I don’t think it’s going to happen, but on the state side I would really put it on people’s radar. Henry, what are your thoughts?

Henry:

I mean, I agree with James. I don’t know that as a country it’ll get implemented, but I definitely think some states will implement a policy like this or similar. And my general thoughts are, as a good landlord you should be keeping your rents at or around market. You can strategically keep your rents a little bit under market so that you don’t price people out of neighborhoods, but rents do go up over time. So even if you’re using that kind of a strategy, you should be increasing a little bit every year in order to keep up with whatever market rates are. Because what happens is when I as a landlord come and I buy a property from an existing landlord who’s not keeping up with rents and maybe they haven’t in 10 or so years, I mean I’ve taken over properties where rents were around four to $500 that landlord had because he had a tenant in it for 10 to 15 years that they never raised rents and now market rents are sitting around $1,200.

And in order for me to be able to afford that property, there has to be this drastic increase. And although it may have helped that tenant for a little while, it now becomes a position where that tenant position because I can’t afford to keep the property unless the rents are around or close to market rents. And so if this gets implemented, I think that that’s where you start to see some problems. Because if I go and buy a property and that landlord hasn’t kept up with rents and now I can only raise rents $10 a year from the four or $500 it is, that’s a problem. But if you are keeping up with your rents and you’re raising them with the market, then I think that this can create a somewhat healthy situation. It’s just not going to be healthy in every sense. You cannot raise rents if you think about what this means.

If you have, let’s say you have a thousand dollars rent, you can only raise your rent $50 the next year if you have a $1,500 rent, you can only raise your rent about $75 the next year. And I don’t think that that’s unreasonable if your place is already priced at or near market rents. But if it is not, I think this creates a problem because it disincentivizes people from coming in and revitalizing areas and making the properties safe and comfortable living because they can’t afford to put tenants in them that will be able to pay rents that support them being able to do that. And so it may create less housing and it does, it’s going to incentivize people to stay away from value add because you can’t make money in apartments doing value add where you can’t raise rents above 5%.

Kathy:

Yeah, I don’t see how this could pass, especially at a time when we’ve just experienced inflation as high as 9%. If there was a cap of 5%, why does the landlord have to take on that burden? Burden? I can understand maybe giving tax credits to a family who’s really having a difficult time affording to live in an area, but to penalize the landlord for a situation that’s really out of their control for the most part it usually comes down to supply and demand. If there is just not enough supply and a lot of demand, then prices go up on whatever the item it is. And that includes rent. So the solution is not rent caps, it’s helping bring on more supply so that there is, and we’re going to talk about this in a little bit, but so that there’s more competition and prices come down, member competitions, everything. And if there’s too much competition, you’re just going to see rents rise. And that’s the problem. They’ve surged 26% in just four years and your rent going up a quarter percent and you’re a family that maybe hasn’t experienced that in your income and things are just getting tighter and tighter for so many families. So there needs to be a solution. Unfortunately the solution can’t be done right away. You can’t just bring on new supply overnight. But rent caps just not a solution.

Henry:

And to be clear, I’m not totally against some level of regulation and capping. I think we do need to be fair to tenants, but we also need to be fair to landlords who are trying to be good landlords and create affordable housing in these neighborhoods. And so maybe it’s that there’s a cap once that property is already at or near market rents, but you have to give landlords some incentive to want to come in and purchase these properties and make them viable living units for that community so that community can continue to grow and thrive. And again, I’m not talking about coming in and raising rents and then pricing people in that neighborhood out of that neighborhood. I’m not talking about gentrification, I’m talking about revitalization. There are properties that are either in service or shouldn’t be in service because of the condition of them. And you need investors to come in and bring those properties up to a safe living standard and then offer it back to that same community at a price they can afford. And you want to be able to incentivize landlords to do that.

James:

I think this is more of a manipulation, a headline in trying to get voters attention because there’s no solution on this, right? You can’t just roll it out nationwide as property taxes and insurance and other expenses are crushing landlords. Landlords are always made out to be the bad guys, but we’re the ones getting our butts kicked right now by expenses and the cashflow has already been going way down. It’s causing mass fits for people. You can’t just cap rent because that’s a one-sided solution. You have to look at the whole problem. How do we get the expenses down? Well then let’s share the savings around the board and figure out how do you get those core cost down because rents are going up. But the thing you also hear is people’s cashflow is not that’s, and so it’s a one-sided argument. Most people I know are making less cashflow even with increasing their rents, that rent increases are not keeping up with the expenses.

Kathy:

People have to decide, do they want the government providing them housing that has not worked so great in the past or do you want investors providing that rental housing? And that’s a double bonus because it’s also helping the landlord create a retirement so they don’t have to be dependent on the government later. People just have to make that choice. And if you just completely deincentivize landlords, it’s already tough, like you said, with rates so high and all the additional costs, so high. Again, you got to choose, do you want government as your landlord or do you want individuals? Alright, we’ve got to take a quick break, but don’t go anywhere. We’ve got some good news for investors right after this. Welcome back to On The Market. Let’s jump back into the latest headlines. Alright, James, why don’t you read the next headline for us?

James:

Well, I got better news than you, Kathy. The housing market gets back to back. Good news. We could use some good news. The 30 year fixed rate mortgages fell again last week from an average of 6.89% to 6.77% 15 year fixed average just fell over 6%. The US Census Bureau also said they completed homes rose last month by 10% up 15.5% a year ago. But home buyers are still hesitant. And so where I feel like this is good news currently we have a lot of properties for sale. We’re seeing this trend nationwide, and I’m hearing it across the board and I’m seeing it too. Months of supply is slowly increasing up in a lot of different markets and that’s to be expected with the seasons. We always see this summer seasonal slowdown. And that’s one thing I think people need to remember. I’m talking to a couple investors recently like, oh man, the market’s hitting a wall.

I’m like, well, it is summertime. That’s just what happens. Things are starting to slow down, but buyers are being very hesitant and it’s not even just that they’re being hesitant, they’re sitting on the sidelines because the amount of showings we’re seeing have dropped off substantially. I mean, we’re talking about our showings locally have probably dropped down at least 50% in the last four weeks and there’s just less buyers coming through because things are really expensive. And I think this is good news, but I feel like the last 12 months, every time we heard this, investors were like, the market’s going to explode. It’s going to explode. But I got to say, I think the Fed is just doing a good job making it this transition right now. Yeah, I got to say I hated on Jerome Powell quite a bit when he just stepped on the gas with these rates. But it seems to be kind of slowly working. The market’s kind of cooling down. Rates are starting to get a little bit of relief and we’re not seeing a J either way. We don’t really want to see that anymore in the market. We can’t see the market jumping and dropping and jumping and dropping. It is not healthy to invest in. And so I think it’s bringing some normality to our market, which I definitely appreciate.

Kathy:

Yeah, I actually think that it’s going to be exactly what you said. I think there’s going to be another boom just like we’ve been talking about. It’s the ups and the downs. And as soon as mortgage rates go down combined with more inventory on the market, which kind of will help cap the price growth, it’s going to be a robust fall would be, if I were to predict, I would say the combination of low rates and home price is not going up so much because of more inventory. I think it’s going to be a really good healthy year. So to interpret it, it seems just more healthy. It’ll be less out of reach for a certain group of people who’ve just been on the sidelines and are just a few dollars off from being able to qualify for that loan. Now they can and they can jump back in. So Henry, what are your thoughts?

Henry:

I was going to say, I think this is good news. This is what we haven’t had in a while, which is a little bit of predictability. If we understand that there’s not going to be this crazy jump one way or another, and we understand that there’s less buyers and we understand that there’s a little more inventory we can be, we can underwrite appropriately. We can buy deals that only make sense given the environment that we’re in, and then we can try to monetize those deals in this current environment. What we’ve been dealing with the past couple of years is we’re buying a property, we’re trying to underwrite it the best we can, but historical data isn’t factual anymore because the market’s changing so fast that it’s almost like if you’re not an experienced investor, it feels like it’s a crapshoot. Is this property going to be worth what I thought it was when I bought it, or is it going to be worth more?

Is it going to be worth less? Who knows? Tune in next week and we may find out, but now there’s a little health and predictability. We have to be conservative in our underwriting. We have to buy deals and then we can expect that they’re going to sell at the price points we underwrite them at in a couple of months. If you are an investor, this can be beneficial to you. You just have to again, be conservative and you’ve got to be fundamentally sound. But isn’t that what you want from your investors who are coming in, buying properties, renovating them, and then selling them to your general public? You want them to be able to buy them at a price point that allows them to fix them appropriately. You want them to have to pay attention to what they’re doing, fix the actual problems, make a good product, and then be good marketers of offering that product to the community, a safe, comfortable product to that community at a fair price point.

And then you want the buyers to be able to come in, buy the property, but be able to do the necessary due diligence that they need to do in order for them to feel comfortable buying that property. This is what a healthy market should be, this is what we need as a country. And so yes, is it tougher for a flipper? I mean, in comparison to three years ago, yeah, it’s tougher, but flippers weren’t forced to produce good products back then. Flippers were just getting in the game, buying something, putting lipstick on it, throwing it back out there. And so now it forces you to be a good flipper. It forces you to pay attention to the product you’re putting out there and to think about your consumer and to be fundamentally sound. This is healthy.

James:

And I think right now as you go into a transition, there’s always a market that goes up and down and moves around that’s just investing. And I think people forget that timing is everything in real estate, especially when you’re doing flip disposition. The amount of applications has been slowing down in the winter. They’re down 5% and I think they’re down a 28 year low right now. They have not seen this low of mortgage applications since 1996. But what you are seeing an increase in is FHA applications. And so as investors, you want to target where the movement is. And for us as flippers, we’re trying to look at where’s that median home price inside that city that it’s in. It doesn’t matter about whether you’re in an expensive market or a cheap market is what is affordable inside your market. Those FHA buyers want low down payments. They want to be around that median home price for whatever the city it is. And that stuff is moving more. And also the applications have gone up nearly half percent in this last month and that tells you where the activity is. And so if you’re nervous about investing, target where the movement is. And that is a huge hit alone, that first time home buyers and people trying to get in the market are still looking. And that’s where the sweet spot is.

Kathy:

It’s amazing to me that still so many people aren’t aware of the FHA loan or the fact that they can get a loan for three, three and a half percent down. I keep hearing, oh, I got to come up with this huge down payment. And there is so much assistance for first time buyers. So if you’re wondering how you’re going to get into the market, just really check out those options that are available for people. So if it’s more FHA loans today, that means that there’s more first time home buyers in there. I think a lot of the data you just said James has to do with, it’s a little bit dated, right? It’s before rates came down, so rates were high with home prices at all new highs, so the market just froze. But now that rates are down, I think the next time we get a report, it’s going to be better, especially if they stay down. Yeah, we’re seeing

James:

Any uptick in showings, I will say that. So that’s real-time information. That is my favorite thing to track how many bodies are coming through houses, and I will say over the last 10 days, we’ve seen zero increase. Wow. And if not a decrease, even with rates coming down, which is kind of a new feeling in the last six to nine months, and that’s okay. It’s just to be expected with the seasons, but they might need to cut the rates a little bit more to pump the bodies back in.

Kathy:

Henry, are you seeing the same thing?

Henry:

We are definitely seeing less showings, but we weren’t seeing a ton. So where James had kind of an uptick maybe a couple of months ago in his market, we kind of stayed flat. And so we’ve come down just a little bit on showings, but our market is so steady that it’s not terrible news. What we are still seeing is if it is priced appropriately, and especially if it is priced under $300,000, you’re going to get showings and you’re going to get an offer within 30 days. It’s just steady here. When you’re starting to see really the big dropoffs are on the kind of that second tier home where you’re upgrading to your second tier home or the luxury home. But even we’ve had some cushion there because our local market is a little different and the companies here have required people to move back to the area in order to stay employed. And so those high income earners who have either moved away or got hired when they live somewhere else, are now having to move here and they’re buying up some of those second tier and luxury homes. We’re pretty steady here.

Kathy:

Yeah, it’s a double-edged sword, these low interest rates, because as we go into the fall, we have heard it’s pretty certain that the Fed is going to cut rates. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that mortgage rates will come down and it may already be priced in because the world knows that the Fed is going to cut rates. But with that said, we’re in a different cycle. Everything’s changing right now. The cutting rates was meant to slow down the economy. Now we’re at the shifting point where the Fed is going to cut rates and do the opposite. So it’s really like a tide shift, which changes everything. And they’re going to probably continue that trajectory into next year. That’s great. If you’re trying to buy a house, what’s not so great is it also means increased job losses. That’s usually what comes along with a stimulus of the economy, their cutting rates to kind of stimulate it. And part of what happens during this part of the cycle is job losses. That’s what the Fed wants to see, but we might already be there where they want to be, so hopefully it won’t be too many and there’s still enough job openings that people who lose their jobs could get another job. But that is sort of what comes with low mortgage rates is higher job losses. All right. Well, let’s move on to Henry’s headline, headline number three.

Henry:

All right. And this headline is from CNBC, and it says, here’s why the international buyers are pulling way back from the US housing market. What they’re saying in this article is that international buyers have purchased about 54,000 existing homes from April, 2023 to March, 2024, and that’s a 36% drop from the previous year. So this is the lowest level of international investment since the NAR started to track it in 2009. And if you look at it in terms of decrease in dollar volume, the dollar volume of these purchases was 42 billion, and that is down 21% from the previous year. The foreign buyers are facing the same challenges as domestic buyers, which include high home prices, higher interest rates. The average purchase price for the international buyer was 780,000, and the median was about 475,000. And both of those were the highest ever recorded by NAR. But some of the challenges that the international buyers are facing that we don’t have to face as domestic buyers are the strong US dollar that they have to take into account, plus they don’t have credit scores and some of the other things that make it easier for us as domestic buyers to be able to buy homes.

So why does this matter for investors?

Kathy:

Well, it’s less competition from people outside the country. That’s probably good for our inventory levels, but I really think it’s not going to last that long. It’s just, in my opinion, a situation where central banks and other countries have already started cutting rates. We haven’t yet. So once the Fed starts cutting rates, I think we’ll be more on par with other countries and we’ll see those buyers come back, but not right now, while the exchange rate is not really in their favor.

Henry:

So in my market, we don’t see a ton of international buyers. I’m sure people in foreign countries aren’t salivating over the thought of investing in Arkansas, but in California, I think this is one of the areas where international buyers do end up buying a lot of homes. Do you feel competition from international buyers there?

Kathy:

There’s a lot of international buyers where I live and also where we invest, yeah. Yeah, we do. But we’re not really seeing an impact in our markets yet, at least that I’m feeling.

James:

I will say they’re still in ours. I think for your normal homeowner, the decrease in foreign purchasing actually has been a good thing for ’em because when the market starts slowing down, it goes through little cycles. The foreign buyers are typically the most opportunistic. They can go from a red hot market to cool down and they’ll throw out offers, what they feel is reasonable. And that’s okay. So I feel like it’s actually helping certain buyers in our market right now because they’re way on top of the stack and they can get a little bit of a better deal. And then the foreign competition, cash is quite a bit below, but for that affordable product for investors, it is definitely still moving because if they’re getting a buy, they will still buy it. And the one thing about foreign money that you’re always competing against, or at least we do in our market, it’s expensive.

Our cost of money is expensive, and we got to deal that and build that into the deal. Their expected returns are so much lower than what we are shooting for, that we are still getting beat out on deals that I would never buy as a rental property because they’re paying all cash, they’re not levering up and they’re clipping maybe a four and a half percent return, but it’s better than what they can get in their own country. And they’re okay with that. Four and a half percent is the most boring return I could ever think of. That is not for me. But they’re still buying. And if it’s a clean, discounted property, they’re aggressive on that. Heavy fixtures, not as much. And then I think that premium product, new construction, that stuff is definitely not moving. That’s going to your buyers that need the housing. So I think it’s been kind of a good thing. Yeah.

Henry:

Again, we don’t have a lot of foreign buyers, so that would make it a foreign concept to me. No, nobody. Okay, and so that was going to be my question since you guys do have them. It sounds to me kind of like they buy maybe a hedge fund buys, they come in and they’re willing to pay 80 to 90% of the current value of the property and they pay all cash. And that can hurt the consumer who’s looking to buy a property to live in. But does it really hurt you from an investment standpoint? Are you buying the same product?

James:

I feel like they don’t buy hedge funds. The hedge funds buy a lot on just built-in returns, at least from my experience working with them where they have a minimum cashflow, a specific type of product that they’re going to put in their portfolio and it hits the number or not foreign transactions and foreign money, I see a lot more. It’s that value approach like, Hey, I can buy this for three 50 a foot in markets 400. They’re looking for that extra value in there because the re metrics sometimes makes zero sense, especially when they’re buying expensive neighborhoods like California, Seattle,

Henry:

Florida, the thing that’s

James:

Expensive, your returns, like if you buy a cashflow property in Bellevue right now, even if you get a decent buy and you pay all cash, you’re getting a two and a half cap or three, and you might be buying below market, which they are. You can buy that product cheaper now with the cost of money, but you still can’t cashflow it. Well, and so that’s where I’ve been seeing them transact more as buying on the value rather than the actual rent metrics because the appreciation alone, if it goes up three and a half percent that year is still way better than they’re getting in their own country.

Kathy:

We do have to take a quick break, but we have one more headline about the hottest markets in the country right now. Are we investing in any of these? We’ll discuss this when we return.

Welcome back investors. Let’s get back to the conversation. Well, let’s move on to our fourth headline. This is from Yahoo Finance, and it is if you live in one of these 20 housing markets, consider selling while it’s still hot. So the article goes on to say that the markets including Manchester, New Hampshire, Springfield, Massachusetts, Rockford, Illinois, new Haven, Connecticut, they’re all just hot, hot markets. I think it was like 16 days on market as their average. So a recent report from realtor.com showed that listings from the 20 hottest markets received three times the views as the national average. So Henry, would you say it’s a good time to buy and these markets are a good time to sell?

Henry:

Well, I mean, if values have gone up and the markets are hot, it is a good time to consider selling. And so when this happens in my local market, when I invest, what I start to do is I call it like you start to look at trimming the fat on your portfolio. So if you’ve bought deals, especially if you’re a buy and hold investor, so if you’ve bought deals, you should really be looking at your portfolio and saying, well, what properties are actually hitting the metrics that I underwrote them at? Are they cash flowing like you? You can take a look at your insurance costs. We know insurance costs have gone up all over the country. Take a look at your total net cashflow. How are your insurance costs going? How are your taxes going? How are your expenses going? Has this property had more maintenance than you thought it would?

And so then you can look at that property and think, okay, well this property isn’t making me the money that I thought it was going to make me. How long would it take for me to get to that point? Or should I throw this property on the market, capture that equity in terms of a sale and then redeploy that capital into properties that are going to help you hit your numbers more effectively. And so you just want to be strategic about if you’re going to look to start offloading properties, what properties you’re offloading, and not just selling because the market is hot, because when the market is hot, you got to think this is what we want, right? As investors, we buy when the market is not as hot because we can get a better deal, and then we capture that value add or that appreciation when the market gets hotter. And it may mean that you need to hold on to some of your properties through this, but this is a good time to trim the fat on your portfolio, take a look at what’s costing you money and not making you money, and then get a premium for selling that property and redeploying that capital.

Kathy:

James, your thoughts?

James:

Well, there’s so many other reasons of why you sell, and Henry just touched on that and what you should be doing, right? As an investor, you should audit your portfolio or audit your buy box and your goals every year. What are you trying to accomplish and what market do you need to be in? And then how will that market help you get closer to your goals or improve your portfolio? If you’re not happy with your returns, you should be running. I always run return on equity every year. How much equity do I have? What’s my true, true return? And then I look at what’s available. Can I trade that out for a different type of property, increase that return, like Henry said, analyze the cashflow. Are my cost going up too much in a certain market and are they looking like the cost are going to go up higher?

If you’re in California and you’re not cash flowing that well, and you have a lot of equity and you think that insurance costs continue to rise, which it sounds like is going to, maybe it’s a good time to trade out. And so you want to look at more the asset rather than the location. Now I will sell anything, and so if I can get the right offer, I will sell it. But I think it’s more of an indicator of not men to sell, but that you’re actually, if you’re in any of these 20 markets, it’s that you bought in the right market, you bought in an area their people are still wanting to reload to, and you want to look at, okay, is that migration changing or is it going to continue? Maybe there’s more runway on that deal if the population is increasing, if the median income’s increasing and there’s still runway on that location, then don’t touch it. But if you’re starting to slow down, then look at disposing and try to catch that next runway city where there is growth, but there’s no indicators you should sell just because people are clicking on it more online. That should not be your deciding factor.

Henry:

James, always chasing the juice, man, always chasing the juice.

James:

But if I can squeeze the juice, I will sell always.

Kathy:

A lot of times we don’t even know what our properties are worth as buy and hold investors, unless you’re constantly looking it up. But let’s just look at this one market on here. Manchester New Hampshire, median days on market is 14, and the median list price is $630,000. I highly doubt that that property cash flows at that price. So it might be a time if you were an investor and Manchester and you thought, well, I have a lot of equity in this. I could sell this and go buy two or three properties in another market that’s also hot, but I’m going to really increase my cashflow this way. So finding out what are your buy and hold properties worth today, maybe they’re worth more than you thought. We just found out in Pittsburgh that a property we paid 230,000 for just a few years ago is now worth about 400 because a lot of the downtown Pittsburgh area is revitalizing. So we’re not getting enough rent to make that make sense. So we are selling that property in 10 31, exchanging into a couple of properties that are lower priced in other markets. So again, portfolio reevaluation. Super important. Take a look, find out what your property’s worth if you’re not a buy and hold investor, these seem like pretty hot markets for flipping. If there’s 14 days on market, there’s demand for sure. So seems good for flippers.

Henry:

No, I totally agree with you, Kathy. That’s a great point.

Kathy:

Thanks. Well, that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining us. And as a reminder, if you want to learn more about real estate, be a savvy investor, just visit biggerpockets.com. There are so many resources for you there. It’s kind of a one-stop shop. You don’t need to go anywhere else. biggerpockets.com. We will see you soon for another episode of On The Market.

Dave:

On The Market was created by me, Dave Meyer and Kaylin Bennett. The show is produced by Kaylin Bennett, with editing by Exodus Media. Copywriting is by Calico content, and we want to extend a big thank you to everyone at BiggerPockets for making this show possible.

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In This Episode We Cover

  • The newest rent cap proposal that could stop landlords from raising rents higher than five percent each year
  • Mortgage rates drop again, but are more rate cuts coming this year?
  • Increased housing inventory and signs of a healthier housing market forming
  • Why international homebuyers have had a significant pullback from the US housing market
  • The hottest markets in America and whether homeowners here should consider selling
  • And So Much More!

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