All Forum Posts by: John Collins

Hi Sunshine!

Yes, PropertyRadar is amazing. I live in it! The short answer is to use the Contact Support link in the app to book a demo with Kim or Keith. I've spent hours with them over the years and they, obviously, have spent tens of 1,000s of hours helping folks (like me) with their lists.

To fully answer your question, I'd need to know more about your investing goals. Location. Buy-and-hold. Fix/flip? Price range? Finance? (Their Investment Analysis tool is super handy, BTW.)

The real power of PropertyRadar is when you combine it with your local knowledge of a particular area. (I'm in the greater Sacto area and know nothing of SoCal). Finding off-market deals is hard work! But the reward is better returns! Totally doable if you stick to a process and know what your "competition" is doing. 

For example, if I found an area that was on the fringes of being gentrified, or near a large employer with swings, I could get more specific.

Here's an example of the thought process:

I went to Google and looked for a major stable employer swing. Found one in Riverside: https://www.pe.com/2018/03/24/riverside-county-bui...

"Riverside County’s $114 million outpatient center aims to complement hospital

Riverside County has started building a 200,000-square-foot medical office and outpatient surgery building on the campus of the 439-bed Riverside University Health System – Medical Center that will change the way patients receive treatment.

When it opens in 2020, the $114 million center in Moreno Valley is expected to add a missing, critical component to the array of services provided by the county hospital, and position the system to become financially self sufficient after years of running deficits."

Hospitals are large employes with employees who need to live nearby and there's a lot of turnover and they hire young new emplyees all the time who need a place to rent. Good for rent and FHA buyers on a flip.

So here's a list I built on that "insight" into the market: https://goradar.it/C0003702

I did a radius of 12 miles from the hospital, SFR, 3+ bed, absentee owner out of county (hands off), and purchased at the top of the bubble (2005-2007) so they've been on a ride. Valued under $500k. Not listed for sale.

There's 799 of those.

Now I'd then segment that list into several others based on the age of the owner, where they live, the equity, type of financing, etc. 

Getting connected to them will require a specific message that speaks to their position. 

How I reach out to the free and clear owners over the age of 75 may be different than a financed under age of 40 owner. 

I've always found that when I connect with the owner (especially absentee owners who are bombarded by poorly executed marketing) with their circumstance in mind I get a better response. (Most investors are lazy and just pump out a form template with a form copy and it's trashed because that absentee owners got a dozen of them. Stand out!)

I'd also look into the List Insights for other things to catch my eye. Only 7% are underwater. Only 11% are owned free and clear. And I'd look at specific neighborhoods in that 12 mile radius and undertsand what's going on with recent transactions.

Finally, I'd use Transfer Search and look for other flippers in that 12 mile radius and see how they are performing. What kind fo deals are they doing, returns, etc. Maybe drive by some of those properties and check them out. Even reach out to them and buy them lunch and pick their brain.

https://help.propertyradar.com/using-propertyradar...

Hope that helps!

@Medi Sarwary I live in PropertyRadar.com. Their new Insights are amazing. The core technique I use is covered here: https://help.propertyradar.com/using-propertyradar/tutorials/finding-flippers

In 2018 in Sac County there were:

• 576 SFP flips (purchased/resold in 6mo or less) in the 250k-750k purchase price zone that saw 10% or greater return. 469 saw 30%+
• 1,721 market purchases of SFR homes in the 250k-750k zone that are now non-owner occupied. Even if only 50% of those are buy/hold investments (probably much higher since Sacto isn't a vacation destination), a very good number.
• 471 market purchases of MFR 2-4 in 2018 in the 250k-750k zone.

Investing in Sacramento is absolutely making sense for some folks. Just maybe not all. 

Just for giggles, I looked at northern Sacto area for comparison and it's MFR 2-4 market in 2018 was down 12% in transactions over 2017, and down 84% in $ volume. So yeah, compared to northern Nevada, Sacto investors definitely having to scrape harder.

@Fe Hendricks nice!

Had you decided to go down the MFR route, I think you may have done well, albeit not as hands-off as a syndication deal 8-)

In Washoe+Douglas there's ~2500 MFR 2-4s, and 2019 saw a steady volume of transactions. ~400 last year, up 8%. Interestingly, the sales volume was down 4% - that means folks are starting to scrape. 66% of that volume was in the $250k-$500k range. And that's reflected in today's listings - 38% listed for sale in the same range. In the 500k to 750k range, it's 20% of the listings. 20% of those MFRs are owned out of state.

I expect Reno/Carson has not been scraped over nearly as much as northern California, however, as deals get harder here in CA I expect more and more CA investors to eye northern Nevada. Especially if Nevada's economy remains strong and California fails to build enough affordable MFR to sustain its economy. Which it has consistently failed at.

@Pramod Yash You're welcome. I swear by PropertyRadar.com. It is everything you need.

@David Acosta is probably right, however, it's always best to run the numbers yourself and quantify and validate your assumptions and other perspectives. Focus on small areas. Even at a county level, that large of a territory can obfuscate opportunities. OC has many different pockets and where the market may be distinctly different, especially if located near large employers.

And always pay attention to the "mix". Opportunities and warning signs can easily get lost at a county level. Real Estate agents tend to focus on a particular mix and can sometimes draw from their own experience conclusions about the condition of the market that they are experiencing and yet be inaccurate because what they see as true for their mix is not true for all prices and locations.

This is what clobbered many folks in 2006/2007. Even while the newspapers running headlines about a strong market and rising prices, smart investors were taking note of the bottom falling out of the lower end of the mix and had a 12-24 months heads up of things being not quite as rosy as the headlines made it out to be.

Finding, rewinding, and understanding recent transactions is always a great strategy. You're working with real deals and they typically reflect the current conditions.

Start with getting to know your market. I live up north and the everything I know about Orange County is derived from unintentionally watching a few minutes of The Real Housewives of Orange County while visiting a relative.

A great place to start to see who is actually performing in the market. I looked at what went down in 2018.

I looked at Market Flips of SFR - purchase and re-sale inside 6 months. (Since your new, don't bother with Short Sale Flips, REO Flips, and Foreclosures as those just add more of a learning curve.)

I limited the pre-flip purchase price to $700,000 guessing that since you're new you're going to focus on the bottom half of median home price sales.

And I only looked at deals that netted a 5% or greater purchase amount change post flip which eliminates a lot of noise and "non flipping flips".

In 2018, with those above criteria, there were 282 flips. About half of those were done by folks that did 3 or more. Some did 6+ flips last year. These are the real competitors. Learn from them.

Activity certainly concentrated around Anaheim and La Palma, and good pocket in La Habra Heights.

The important thing here is to go and reverse engineer some of these, especially the ones that got 30%+ return. Those flippers are winning.

I'd try and reach those flippers. Take one or two to lunch and walk through some recent deals. Make some connections. I looked up a few of those and found them on LinkedIn and looked at their websites.

Drive (for dollars) by as many of those flips as you can. Get a feel for what the pre-flip and post-flip transition is. What was it that got that 55% return?

I gurantee you that if you even spent a month doing just that you'll be 10000% smarter about your Orange County market and uncovering the insights you need to find and flip the right deals that make you money.

@Braden Smith is absolutely right. I'm an investor and also an absentee owner of properties. I often receive marketing from investors mailing to an absentee owner lists with little thought or due diligence. You must be very specific in targeting and your marketing must fit that target. Absentee owners is a start, but there are 100 ways to slice that up. Things like current equity, age, length of ownership, recent transactions near their property, property type, ADU potential, taxes, etc. So many ways to get specific.

@Cindy Chan PropertyRadar.com. Everything I need for researching a market, contacting owners, setting alerts to monitor a market. I really couldn't imagine doing what I do without it. It's nice to always be able to find answers to questions.

@Jay Hinrichs We're in agreement. That's why I said "big banks".