All Forum Posts by: Jeff Stephens

Jessica--congrats on your impending move...that is exciting!  I think you will find there are tremendous differences in all of these markets.  I think it's going to be difficult to create meaningful apples-to-apples comparisons between these cities (but I think that's OK, and I'll explain why).  

I live in Portland, OR, for instance, and am obviously very familiar with Portland, and somewhat familiar with Seattle.  I too am a buy-and-hold investor, but I definitely would NOT call Portland or Seattle "cash flow markets"! If you're familiar with "the 1% rule" (the monthly rent-to-purchase price ratio), you'll find in Portland you are doing very well if you can get even about a 0.65%.  On the flip side, we have really strong equity and appreciation, and incredibly strong demand.  I don't know the other markets you mentioned, but I'm guessing that many of them have much, much different dynamics than Portland.  It took me a while to get my brain wrapped around the idea of buying long-term holds in a market with limited cash flow, but now I have a good grasp on how it fits into my own investment strategy, and I'm glad I'm investing here.

That's my segue to what I think is the most important point:  To me, what's important is understanding your own goals deeply, having your own investment strategy, and then choosing 1-2 markets to get to know really well, that fit into that strategy.  From my perspective, there isn't really a "best market for buy-and-hold"; rather, there are "the best markets I know really well, that fit MY own buy-and-hold strategy." 

Laurent--congrats on having a deal to work on! Here's my experience, and I'm actually doing something somewhat similar right now too. If you refinance the property with a conventional lender, they will require you to quit-claim the property into your name at closing, because their loan will be to YOU individually, rather than your LLC. (When I've done this in the past, I've later moved the property back into my LLC, and haven't had any problems to date)

My question for you is this:  what method of "owner financing" are you wanting to sell the property through, to accommodate the underlying debt that you will have? There are different ways you can accomplish this, such as using a wrap note, or selling on a lease option.  What structure do you have in mind?