All Forum Posts by: Chris Soignier

I recommend you ALWAYS use a buyer's agent representing you and nobody else when buying real estate.  The listing agent has a fiduciary responsibility to the seller, but also a responsibility to be honest to all parties in the transaction.  The Sellers' Disclosure is the seller's responsibility, but if the listing agent sees a disclosable condition that's not on the SDN, he/she should advise the seller to add it, or refuse to work with the seller if he/she refuses to do so.

Originally posted by @Ralph Justiz:

@Maurice E. Stokes Jr ask a real estate agent! They should be able to show you some stats pretty quickly if they have access to the local mls. Attached below is a screen shot I pulled from my mls in OKC. The 2.4 supply number represents how many months of supply are currently avaliable on the entire MLS. What I've been taught is 6 is equilibrium, higher then 6 is a buyers market, and less then 6 is a sellers market.

We also have the ability to shrink the scope of data to specific cities as long as they are apart of our MLS. Hopefully that helps!

 Ralph, you beat me to it.  6 months' inventory is normally considered the equilibrium.  Less than that = sellers' market, more = buyers' market.   I think it's also helpful to look at data trends for sale price as a % of listing price, median price/sq. ft., days on market, closed sales, etc. to gain additional perspective regarding market direction.

Search for Apartment Investment Mastery, or AIM, on meetup.com - they're run by Brad Sumrok's students all over town.  Momentum Multifamily is another good one.   Old Capital has a speaker series where they bring in economists focusing on multifamily - those are great for networking and highly education.  My favorite MF networking events are @ Lifestyles Unlimited, but you have to be a member for most of those.

I'd invest $100K each in 3 solid multifamily syndications led by sponsors I know, like, and trust.  If I was just starting out, I'd probably divide it into 6 $50K MF deals to achieve better diversification of markets/submarkets and deal sponsors.

I also question the desire to pay off investment-related debt in this time of record-low interest rates.  You definitely don't want to over-leverage, but this is a historically great time to borrow money on cash-flowing assets, and leverage is the special sauce that can transform real estate from merely cash flowing to multiplying your wealth.  Instead of paying down leverage over time, I'd look into cash-out refinancing as appreciation becomes significant and rolling the proceeds into acquiring more cash-flowing real estate assets.

I'd leave sealed containers, but anything that's been opened I'd either throw out or keep for myself if I felt comfortable doing so.  Why assume the liability for a product that you have no control over?

Per TREC website: 

https://www.trec.texas.gov/become-licensed/sales-agent

Requirements for a License

• Citizen of the United States or lawfully admitted alien
• 18 years of age or older
• Meet TREC’s qualifications for honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity
  • Consider requesting a Fitness Determination before applying for the license

I believe Champions is the best in Texas.   I used Real Estate Express via a great Groupon deal.  It adequately prepared me to easily pass on the first attempt, but it was very dry (which is probably more due to the material than the provider).

Instead of implementing velocity banking w/ my HELOC, I borrowed $150K and made 2 $75K investments into multifamily syndications. Both roughly doubled in 2-3 years (which is not realistic to expect in today's market), and I reinvested the proceeds to keep it snowballing. This has created a much more sizable impact on my net worth than I would have gotten with velocity banking on that HELOC.

I do practice somewhat of a form of velocity banking by maintaining low cash liquidity and using low-cost lines of credit to fill in the gaps when needed.

One of my cardinal rules is to never invest in any property that doesn't cash flow.   Sure, some investors make sizable returns on land and other non-cash flowing real estate, but they also bear much higher risk in doing so.

That said, for investments in my Solo 401K, appreciation (i.e. risk-adjusted IRR) is my primary investment objective, while I prioritize cash-on-cash returns in my non-retirement investments.

My multifamily investments are still cash flowing with minimal if any impact, and I'm about to invest another $100K in a syndication of a couple of multifamily communities in San Antonio.  I sleep much better with my assets concentrated in real estate than I would if they were in the stock market.