What are you doing in 2015? In particular in So Cal?

Question

Investor from Southern California here and interested in what other BP'ers, particularly those in Southern California are gearing up to accomplish in 2015. Southern California has been such a ridiculous seller's market and it's a good time to sell due to many investors both local and international (particularly China) so I'm curious what other investors are doing (going out of state?)

Here are some of my goals for the new year:

- Close on an office building i'm in escrow for

- Sell an apartment in Riverside that i'm marketing and recently flipped

- Target land development, rezoning, and commercial rehab opportunities

- More involvement with BP and more in person networking

- Getting to know and building relationships with local investors and developers

- Helping foreign investors find investments in the USA

- Office condo - development and conversion

- Land development

Happy New Year!

Assaf Furman · Answer

The situation in SF bay is similar to that in the south - SFR prices are high up and keep soaring. My goals for 2015:- Wholesale 10 off-market deals- Fix&Flip 1 property- Buy a house for myself (out of the 10 deals I find)I considered going out of state to invest in an income property, but soon realized the latter goal is a much better investment

Martin Z. · Answer

yah, it's nuts and saturated in certain areas. 3 years ago, there was multifam going for 200ish a foot, now it's above 300. I guess you have to just think outside the box.

Jason Mak · Answer

@Martin Z. certainly takes a lot of discipline to take a back seat in but I agree with you that it may be the most judicious move given where our market is headed. I was looking at several apartment deals in Glendale in late 2014 and the cap rates were at like 3%-3.5%...hehe

Martin Z. · Answer

@Jason Mak I agree, it definitely is a seller's market and from what I"m seeing in the area, we've surpassed pre-recession levels. This year, I'll be taking a back seat and let things play out.

Naveen Desai · Answer

Hi Folks, In SoCal ( San Diego), I will be writing a contract to acquire a property and plan to Flip it. My offer has been accepted by seller. Also looking for funding this property (200K), so any of you that can point to flat fee lenders, please do. @Jason Mak @Matthew Nixon - Nice goals for the year. I will try to incorporate some.@Assaf Furman - When you have a wholesale deal that you offer, please share the info. Add me to your distro list, please. Thanks, Naveen.

Sean Hurwitz · Answer

Wow @Jason Mak, you've got your hands full for the year.I'm in SFV and just got into RE, so my goals are a little more modest, but here they are.* In my time off the road, find, buy, rehab and sell 3-5 properties with my Fiancee.* Network as much as I can on BP and find suitable SoCal Partners to work with during the time I'm ON the road.* This is a small one, but if I could MAKE $20K in profit from my first flip, I'll be a happy guy.* Read these 3 books: The One Thing by Gary Keller The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod Pitch Anything by Oren KlaffThat's more or less it from the business side :-)Good luck with all your endeavors.Happy new year!

Karen Margrave · Answer

@Jason Mak Sounds like you have a lot of the same interests as we do. Right now we are doing spec new construction in south Orange County. However; our experience before the crash was in developing small office parks with buildings that were bought by owner/users, or investors as buy/hold. We also developed office/retail condo projects, medical office, medical/dental clinic, general office, residential subdivision, and multi family. We hope to get back to that, as we know of a few great projects here in Orange County just waiting to be developed. For now, we are excited about projects we have going. @Matthew Nixon @Elizabeth Colegrove Looks like all of you have some ambitious plans mapped out and you're well on your way. Congratulations!

Jason Mak · Answer

@Elizabeth Colegrove that makes sense - best of luck with that transition. I heard elsewhere that vacation rentals are becoming nice investments so I'll too dig into this a little more

Elizabeth Colegrove · Answer

@Jason Mak I will self manage the homes so that will save me 20%. I am also looking in an area that has a summer vacation rental, and longer term winter appeal too. So I am hoping to make my money in the summer and than keep my earnings in the winter. Still working on my business model but from what I can tell it looks like it will work out.

Jason Mak · Answer

@Matthew Nixon That's good stuff Matthew, perhaps we'll get to meet at one of the LA county networking meetups. Are you finding a quality blog helpful for your business? Or is blogging just something you enjoy doing for personal reasons?@Elizabeth Colegrove Thanks for sharing! Good luck on hitting those two more houses. Out of curiosity, why vacation rentals? I did take a brief look into vacation rentals and just never thought they cash flowed enough after management fees to make sense economically. What's your approach?