Do mortgage rates really matter to buy and hold investors?

If there was one topic that buy and hold investors in residential real estate can’t stop thinking about, it’s interest rates. And why shouldn’t it be? An incremental rise in rates eats into your costs, reduces your cash on cash return and makes prospective investments look wholly unattractive. But is this factor too influential in our decision making?

Buy and hold investors do just that, they buy and they hold. A common phrase used by Real Estate veterans is “don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait”, “the best time to buy property was yesterday”, “time in the market not timing the market”. However if you’re a new buyer trying to get into your first property, you’ll be comparing a 7% rate to the 3% your coworker gloats about and thinking the property ship has sailed. Whilst you’ll be forgiven for thinking that, with a buy and hold long term outlook, it doesn’t *really* matter.

Take a $250k Single Family property, with a $50k down payment, $200k loan and 30 year fix at 7%. You buy that property in 2023 and hold onto it. The property is a little way off the 1% rule and rents for $2000 per month. Your Principal+Interest+Taxes+Insurance is $1700, you pay a property manager $200 and you set aside $400 for repairs/capex/vacancy. Simple maths tells you, terrible investment, you’re losing $300 every month.

OK, so year 1 you lose $3600, year 2 you lose $2400, years 3 you lose $1200 after raising rents 5% ($100 pcm) each year. Year 4 you’re in the green and finally made $0. Thanks for the great advice 👋.

After 3 years you’ve done nothing but lose $7200 right? Wrong. Your loan has been paid down $5163, you’ve built $24,972 in equity assuming 4% appreciation (US annual average sInce 1991) and we haven’t even spoken about the tax writeoffs yet. By year 3, you’ve made half your investment back in equity. By year 5/6 your entire investment has been made back and you’re sailing off into the profit sunset.

And if that wasn’t great enough, you’ve written off a ton in taxes (bc our IRS loves RE Investors), your debt is eroding in value not only because of the loan pay down but because INFLATION is making your fixed debt less valuable every. single. day. And if there’s one thing you can bank on (no pun intended) it’s inflation via money printing and daily devaluation of your dollar.

And hey, if you get lucky the fed might want to stimulate the economy at some point 🤔 and lower rates, giving you an easy opportunity to swap your 7% interest for something to brag about at work.

So maybe the old guard was right? Don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait.