All Forum Posts by: Corey Conklin

@James Kerson

You've stirred up a lot of agents haha.

I'm with you on your intent of this post. Things need to change. This current model isn't where we should be in 2024. Unfortunately there are a lot of agents who will fight this issue hard as you are attempting to threaten their livelihood. They'll fight even if it is a detriment of buyers and sellers of real estate.

Good luck and keep fighting the good fight!

The best month to buy? Last month. The best time to buy real estate is in the past. That means the longer you hold out the more you'll end up spending.

I've bought properties in any season and it really doesn't matter. Sure there may be less buyers looking to move in the winter but that is a 2 way street. Meaning people don't want to move out of their home either, so the supply is also lower.

Do your homework on what sort of house you need, what area, etc. and buy what works for you. Don't worry about what anyone says about there being a good time to buy because it's nonsense. Time has always been good to real estate.

I know a couple that bought a 2500 SF home in the 70's for less than 50k and still live in that same home. They thought they overpaid at the time. Well, they aren't thinking that today.

 I didn't say go after the crappy, class D properties. I said offer great service at a low price to entice people to use his company as the PM. Class A and B property owners are just as concerned about the management costs as class D property owners. If he does that he will have more than enough leads coming his way.

It's also important to understand that he doesn't plan to manage for 3rd party clients long term. He just needs the clients today to get his operations dialed in for his own portfolio. The sacrifice in profits of the PM company today will help him in the long run.

I would focus on creating a business that provides the best service for your clients. The end game is for you to be the only client. That being said, this would ensure that you have a great service in place to manage your assets once you have hit that milestone.

I would use low pricing as an opportunity to try and get clients in the door. All while striving to provide better service than any other PM in your area. If you do that you'll have plenty of leads hit your door step and it will give you a great opportunity to dial in your PM business operations.

 Don't necessarily worry about the profit of the PM company, remember your end game isn't to be a profitable PM company, but a profitable real estate developer/investor who has built a great PM company to maximize returns on your own investments. If you sacrifice short term profitability on your PM company for the long term benefit of building the PM company that will manage your future portfolio it should pay off.

I think it's important to look at the portfolio as a whole.

Investing off of appreciation can be pretty lucrative and it can be a way to gain a lot of wealth. 

Would I put everything I have into a few deals in one area hoping for great appreciation? Absolutely not. I don't think it's a great strategy if you are just getting started.

If you have the financial stability and experience to take on negative cash flow betting on the high appreciation then I think there isn't a problem with this strategy at all. 

Should you? No.

Are you going to? Who knows.

If you do it and it goes the way it normally does (poorly) you can let the next one in line know it's a bad idea.

I got a RE license as I was struggling to find a good agent. I had no intention to ever use it outside of my own business. It's nice to have access to the MLS data and how easy it is to set up a showing of a property that I want to see.

The downside is you will have to pay the broker, MLS, and NAR fees along with continuing education requirements to maintain your license which can sometimes not be worth it.

The biggest perk for me was having people I know come to me to list their house for them but instead I would just offer to buy it and make the process easy for them. I landed a couple of great properties that way. So it could be a great lead gen opportunity.

Starting out it's probably not a bad idea to get a license since it's relatively easy to do and isn't that expensive to maintain. Once you become seasoned you shouldn't need your license to do deals as you should have a good network at that point. 

Everyone seems to think this is only an affordability issue. I think everyone is forgetting that there is a huge amount of people that DON'T want to live in or near a big metro area. There was a time in my 20's that I enjoyed being near all of the lights, sirens, and and amenities that a major metro provides but as you age you start to understand that it's really over rated.

I grew up in small town Kansas and have lived in some big cities after I graduated college. There is no comparison in the quality of life. small town, country living will ALWAYS beat the city life. You don't have to agree with that and it's not anything factual, but it's important to understand that there are millions of people that would agree with it.

I choose to only invest in small towns because I am seeing more and more people choose that life over big cities. In fact, I just had a young family from the Seattle area move into one of my houses in a small town in Kansas of about 11k people. I've had multiple people from metros all over the country reach out to my houses that are posted for rent on Zillow that are moving to small town Kansas. A lot of people want out of the city.

Sure, rising population metro areas are a safe bet when it come to investing. Location absolutely matters. But for a lot of younger family's a small community, starlit sky's, and the sound of nature are more important that constant sirens, Uber, dog spa's, and 100 different coffee shops or microbreweries.