All Forum Posts by: Alex Hochberger

Okay, was hoping to compare because obviously there are trade offs everywhere.

Absolute must have: the ability to automate communications on all platforms. My wife and Im for religious reasons, have times where we are simply unaccessible with technology. Being able to have a Chat bot that can essentially funnel the instruction to the handyman is going to be critical for us, even if that means us authorizing a repair we'd rather now.

Primary use case: we want to manage our STR listings, cleanings, and calendar from one place. We have contemplated renting our home out when we are out of town using the property, and if this works we hope to acquire two more in two years.

We want to use one of the pricing services to automatically set prices, since we are in a seasonal market.

I personally work in technology and digital marketing, so I'm familiar with all the "Enterprise" versions of these automation tools. As a result, user friendliness is less important to me than feature rich. What I want to resist is the temptation to build my own solution.

I've heard of Hostfully, I checked out Ownerrez based on this thread (it looks amazing), and Guesty for Hosts.

Thank you to everyone in this thread that has given me some great suggestions, thank you!!!

 Thanks! Was hoping that there was a good blog post or two that people here could point me to.

Thank you for an actionable suggestion., I'll look at those two. Hostfully looked promising when I first saw it, going to check out Ownerrez.

We went to contract last week (Yay!) and are closing in October. We have a contractual 45 day close but if the mortgage company can go faster, we'll close in 30 (both sides agreed).

So we're going to take a few weeks to get everything ready to go, but I want to work on the systems ASAP.

Does anyone know of a good review of the various Property Management Systems, etc., to put together an automation stack? I'd like to see things like "has a Wordpress Plugin" or other features. I'm trying to do research based on names I've heard, but no good comparison sites.

Offer was accepted. Going through paperwork hell. Not unexpected. Wish me luck.

Crash vs Bear vs Correction - Why it matters

If a typical investor puts 20% down, and has fees of 8% to get out, then the market dropping 12% doesn't wipe out equity. That's solidly a correction.

Even in a bear market that drops 20% over 12-24 months, that brand new investor is probably NOT upside down because of amortization.

A crash: 25%-30% in 1-3 months is VERY different. Lots of people are wiped out in a crash that would survive a bear market, let alone a correction.

Corrections just happen and aren't things to really worry about. Your equity drops for a few months then resumes recovery. Bears are slightly worse but same concept.

Crashes are a different disaster, because the market ceases up. Deals can't get done, you can't get out, you're losing everything.

A correction hurts, a crash wipes out the amateurs and leaves the pros to pick up the pieces.

Thank you for some great advice. The market we are looking in is shifting. I expect the market to improve for buyers over the next few months, so in that regard I'm not rushed. I want to give myself some margin of error. However, for the specific goals of this purchase (there is an STR component and a vacation home component, the latter is constraining more than the former.

So good point on the if there is a deal, take it. Thank you.

 That's what we did. It's a fair offer, not a lowball, but give us some margin of error in a correction. Our realtor told me to expect a counter offer, we shall see

A correction is a 10% decline in a market.

A bear market is a 20% decline in a market.

A crash is sudden and abrupt.

I don't think that there will be a housing crash does NOT mean "real estate always goes up" it does mean that we don't expect a rapid crash. Some markets may go bear, many more will correct. Others will flatline, and some will grow. The likelihood of an abrupt collapse of housing prices by 25%-30% (the normal concept of a crash) seems unlikely.

Demand for housing is up from pre-pandemic - divorces (creating dual households), new family formation, plus a "work from home" reality that creates a demand for larger living spaces (extra bedrooms) all shifts the demand curve outward. Supply chain problems shifts the supply curve leftward. That will create a new equilibrium of higher prices in a slower market. Now if your particular market expanded more than the economy can support, a local bear market is very likely.

In general, real estate tracks wage growth. If high inflation throws us into a severe recession (not the baby one we just went through and are denying happened), all bets are off. But otherwise, the wage growth and inflation should power nominal real estate prices.

I guess my question is that if we give an offer, should we expect a counter or should we expect a yes/no?

I'm worried about trying to catch a falling knife. I don't think that we've found the bottom, but I do think that this is a good time for my family to invest. So if we can get a good price on this first one, it's a good investment move regardless of if we go through a correction.

I'm not expecting a crash, but regional corrections and the occasional crash will happen. So we'll put our first offer in this week. We'll get it or we won't. We'll see.

I bought my house in the pre-crash boom. Back then, there was a push to put in full price offers, but we put in a lowball on a house that had sat (and needed a rehab).

The market we're looking in appears to have softened a bit (we're seeing price drops), but it remains "moving." So we have a virtual tour of the house arranged for later this week when our agent is back in town, and we plan to put in an offer, here is my question:

Is putting in a lower offer still a valid way to get a conversation going?

How fast can we expect the back and forth go? Should we expect a rapid counter offer? Last time we did this, people were still scratching things off on paper forms and faxing them around.

Thanks in advanced!