All Forum Posts by: Ben Fraser

Hi Michael Sato , Thank you sir! And hey, I just got an offer on my first Lansing, MI SFR and, God willing, I will close the week of the 16th-22nd. That still leaves me with my second SFR in Lansing and my newest acquisition, an SFR in Haslett, MI. I did try to get into MF after House-1 but I couldn't meet those price points and still get quality properties at the time and the deals on House-2 and House-3 were incredible. Still, I'm keeping my eyes peeled while I continue to get House-2 and House-3 ready for rental (not sure which one I will rent first). That I've done all this while I have been looking for my dream job has only been possible with major help from the BP community! Thank you! All the best, Ben

Hi Kyle, Luke, and Marc, I just sent this message to Dillon but I wanted to send it to everyone else on this thread too. Hi [All], Thank you! And hey, I just got an offer on my first Lansing SFR and, God willing, I will close the week of the 16th-22nd. That still leaves me with my second SFR in Lansing and my newest acquisition, an SFR in Haslett. I did try to get into MF after House-1 but I couldn't meet those price points and still get quality properties at the time and the deals on House-2 and House-3 were incredible. Still, I'm keeping my eyes peeled while I continue to get House-2 and House-3 ready for rental (not sure which one I will rent first). That I've done all this while I have been looking for my dream job has only been possible with major help from the BP community! Thank you! All the best, Ben

Hi Ben, I've been in REI for about 2 years, I have done cash deals only (as a student with no W2, this was my only option). I have had to pay for 1 inspection (house1 was a FannieMae SuperSale cash deal that really didn't warrant an inspection, house3 already had an inspection done). In light of all the above, please take what I say for what it's worth: Buyers pay for inspections because they don't want to buy a lemon. And, if the inspection is good enough, you will have a handy to-do list after the close. Essentially, I'm saying I would eat that cost and move on. Thank you for protecting us, Ben Fraser

Absolutely Josh! A strategy based on the City or County planning documents has risk because, even though they aren't likely to change them much, their timelines might get pushed depending on their fiscal policy and/or financial ability. Likewise, an Applebees/Chiles-type strategy has risk because they might simply be wrong. Or, they might become wrong if the local economy experiences an internal or external force. Still, as you say, an icing-on-the-cake approach is a good way to look at it. Building on that, a buy-and-flip that changes to a buy-and-hold can work and provide liquidity with proper planning, and vice versa. One last specific thing I want to add to our conversation. I did some digging into Chicago's south side because it's pretty bad there and prices are low. However, there is an argument that things will start to turn around because the Obama Presidential Library is being planned for Jackson Park and all those planning documents and news articles are quite clear on that.

Thanks for your reply Rod. And I'm not surprised that my post was confusing to you. I was pretty confused myself. But I spoke to my realtor and he cleared it up that, yes I had accepted an offer, and yes I had sent an amendment. But, fortunately for me, the process stopped there and no PA had been bottom-lined. So, now that the closing date on the seller's accepted offer is past and no PA was signed, I'm back to square one with a newly-interested party.

Hi y'all, Look at the City's Master Plan and Future Zoning Map. Pay particular attention to the City's Capital Improvements Plan, which might be a separate document or might be rolled into either the Comprehensive Plan, the Master Plan, Transportation Plan, or some other planning document. The documents above usually reference 10 year futures and are updated every 3-5 years. Citizen input via community meetings are almost always a part of the process so, if there is any mention of that then try to be there or, failing that, YouTube the meeting (or charrette or design charrette, as they are sometimes called) afterwards. If there aren't any videos being made of that process then try to find news articles or public information about them on the City and/or County's official site. There's also something to be said for simple Google and/or Google Maps searches, such as "newest Dollar General in Greenville, SC" or "best discount used tires in Greenville, SC" because, chances are, the Dollar General corporation (and the like) is not going to put up a new store in what they believe is an up-and-coming area. On the flip side, try to scope out when and where big players are making moves. For instance, in Lansing, MI, the Sparrow Hospital just finished building a multimillion dollar Cancer Center (and, if not a hospital improvement then perhaps a new University building). So, think about similar buildings being planned by major players in the City's and County's stronger economic sectors, and ask yourself "if I'd been aware of it ahead of time, might I have been able to score a few cheap houses or strip malls and been able to flip them to the new, highly-paid employees of the Center or to businesses trying to sell to those consumers?" Finally, ask yourself, "When was the last time I saw an Applebees or a Chiles in a rough part of town and (since you know where I'm going with this example) are any Applebees/Chiles/similar restaurants being built in my focus areas? Good luck and thanks for posting to BP! Ben

I have to agree with Dante Pirouz that Trulia can be a great guide to get started by quickly weeding out no-go areas. In fact, I just re-checked my area of proximity to Lansing/East Lansing, MI. East Lansing is low crime on their report and there are some areas of Lansing that are higher, and that all squares with my own experiences in those areas. Farther out, I recently drove down to ATL for a job interview and I decided to do a little recon there and in Greenville, SC. Trulia was spot on! Then I drove to STL for the eclipse and it was quite helpful again! Good luck and thanks for posting to BP! Ben

Hi Cedric, I applaud your diligent use of demographic indicators in your search for expansion. Mainly, I think that, after looking over the Fitch site and the Len Kiefer site, you may be missing an important indicator of demographic health: wage growth. Nevertheless, I'm here to bring your attention to Lansing, Michigan. The city of Lansing itself is experiencing everything you've heard about Michigan and I don't know that I could recommend it to anyone confidently (at this time) because the turnaround that I am seeing is in the beginning stage (at best) and might just evaporate completely. But, there are places just to the periphery of Lansing that might warrant a closer inspection from yourself and other data-driven investors. In Lansing's case, the periphery includes East Lansing and Haslett to the east, Grand Ledge to the west, and Holt and Okemos to the south. Myself, I made a recent investment in Haslett. Stats, 2014 to 2015 (median income/wage growth/job growth): Compared to Lansing (35.5k/-0.31%/1.8%) and East Lansing ($33k/-0.25%/-0.33%), Haslett boasts stats of 58.9k/3.0%/-0.25%. Okemos, a small, neighboring city to the south, has better performance ($75k/4.7%/4.0%). In addition to the basic economic indicators, Haslett has strong tourist potential (if you ever AirBnB) being so close to Michigan State University (football/basketball game weekends) and strong recreational potential in terms of green space and Lake Lansing. More so, the main potential exists in Haslett because the school districts are second to none in the state. Thus, there is a strong trend for people to migrate from the rest of Michigan into the Haslett/East Lansing area. Interstate, this trend extends also to people from outside MI who are relocating to jobs in Lansing, Flint, Dearborn, and even farther away from Haslett, in Detroit. Further anecdotal confirmation of this is the fact that I am looking for work in Detroit and plan to live in my appreciating house in Haslett while I do that. Risks exist but are few in Haslett: -Lake Lansing could fill in or become polluted -(but it was recently dredged and inlets are monitored closely) -MSU could become less popular in sports -(but it's hard to hard to imagine that happening because the University is very supportive of its athletic programs, MSU alumni are numerous in the area, and MSU is in the B10 conference). -Property values might decline and drag rents down too -(but Haslett is supported by retirees as well as its best-in-state schools) -The entire state economy might convulse as it did during the automaker exit and Great Recession -(but Michigan is still in early recovery from its major declines so it has very little space to fall further and Haslett weathered that storm quite well - using Zillow Home Price as a measure) Returning to your original two sources, the housing stock in Haslett is growing very, very slowly due to smart but strict regulation while the demand for housing is continuing to grow faster. So, all things point to growth in this tiny REI area which is best known perhaps for the Lake Lansing coastline of which supports houses ranging from 250K to 1.5M (and were these lake houses built almost anywhere in Los Angeles they would fetch prices 5 to 10 times as high - they are that great). Good luck and thanks for sharing on BP! Ben

Hi y'all, I recently accepted an offer to purchase one of my properties. I was happy but then that feeling quickly dissipated. The buyer and I agreed on a very tight closing timeline. So my realtor recommended that we send an amendment to the contract that gave me more time to remove 2 shipping containers that I never intended to sell along with the property. This amendment, he assured me, would exclude the containers within the contract itself and therefore protect my continued possession of them. Now, with the amendment to the signed contract in hand, the buyer has yet to respond to the amendment and it has been so long now that the closing date (that was such a worry in the first place) on the original contract is past. So, since the amendment has no deadline for acceptance or denial, how long am I supposed to wait? And, even if the buyer did want to close, he would have to send an amendment himself to me to move the closing date. So, now that I've gone through this interminable process with him I've lost my good faith in him and I'm unsure if I would even accept an amendment from him to move back the closing date. What are my options? Thanks

Hi Jason, Love, love, love Santa Cruz!!! But, alas, I'm currently based in MI. Also, I've finally concluded that my ROI growth is too slow going here so I'm going to be exiting and expanding. To that end, I'm looking to invest in MN IL OH, TN, AZ TX, VA NC SC GA FL, and/or WA. It's a lot of research but I enjoy it. I'm data driven, using blockgroup-level census demographics and county-level parcel data. ESRI's ArcGIS software is a powerhorse! I also love satellite imagery (but ENVI, Erdas is better for those data, currently) and LiDAR (eCog). Based on what I'm seeing so far, if you decide on out-of-state then I suggest taking your cues from the growth of metro areas. For instance, is any given metro area (surrounding cities that support a main city, or two) really growing when you compare it to any other metro area? So, when scouting new areas, we all know (thanks to BP!) that we need to look for areas with strong job growth/decreasing unemployment trends. Job growth and high employment are not necessarily the same thing as migration into a city/region could possibly exceed stellar job growth numbers. So we also need a strong trend of net positive migration. In addition, we need to talk to other REI's to try and understand market cycles (so we aren't buying in at the peak). Metro areas are very useful in understanding all of the above on a regional level, without getting bogged down by RE-arbitrary city boundaries. So, in one example, buying in the right neighborhood would capture the stellar job growth and positive in-migration. That's why I feel the need to look at census blockgroups in metro areas. Now, if all this sounds a little confusing - don't worry, the good news is that metro areas (by virtue of their multi-city nature) can support multiple job growth areas and multiple reasons for in-migration and, thus, the correct neighborhoods. I'm working on a set of posts here, to my blog, to further explain all of this, and with some pretty cool maps too. I would love a follow and then some feedback from you. Good luck!