All Forum Posts by: John M.

@Gareth Meaker  Hi Gareth and welcome.  I agree with what others have said about the southeast and stay away from the coasts.

I also agree with what @Steve B. said about looking for the next thing to pop rather than what has already popped. 

One thing I also agree with Grant Cardone on is that you want to be in a market that has some appeal and exposure to the rich, especially the international ultra wealthy.  That's why I like Las Vegas which is the market I am most familiar with.  That's not necessarily where the rich and ultra wealthy live, but they certainly go there to play and they spend a lot of money there.  And since just about every top luxury brand in the world is represented there now I think it's going to continue to be one of the playgrounds of the rich for a long time to come.  In fact Hilton recently announced they are buying the Mandarin Oriental and rebranding it a Waldorf Astoria so that's very telling.  That demand along with conventions, sports teams, eSports, population growth and a lot of other things going on there right now is making me very optimistic about Vegas' future prospects.

I don't like to look at where prices have been, I like to look at where I think they are going in the future.   The reason I don't like to look at the past is that what drove prices to those highs previously won't necessarily be the same dynamics that will drive them forward in the future.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect the next time the market slows as a whole (or corrects), we may see some surprises as far as which city's prices decline, which ones hold up, and which ones recover the fastest.  There's been some pretty big shifts in many markets going on since 2007 whether it's changing demographics, the nature of jobs and work (i.e. "gig" economy, technology, etc), cost of living especially housing, etc, so it will be interesting to see how those changes manifest themselves the next time the economy and markets are stress tested.  I have my own ideas, but I think we will see some new leaders emerge and some previously leaders lag.

@Scott Wolf You did make a good point I didn't think about, at least in my case having a license led to deals and establishing good relationships with some pretty big name brokers as a closer, which does add quite a bit of "street cred" that others won't have.   That can actually be well worth it....

I got my license in 2010 and actually was one of the top closers in my office of about 40 agents the first year. However, after my expenses, MLS fees, Board fees, marketing, comission splits, blah blah I was making less than when I had a full time job. I did it for about 3 years and had a lot of fun, made enough to pay my bills, made some amazing client friendships that changed my life, but at the end of the day I was making a lot more money in technology (that was my career prior to real estate). So went back to that full time and then taking that income to invest in real estate. I still keep my license since it's already active but don't have time to represent clients anymore.

For a real estate investor it might be benefit for reasons @David Hutson had mentioned, but if you want to do real estate sales full time it seems to me the industry is changing very rapidly due to disruptive technologies and websites like Redfin, Zillow, etc., which I think will be a big challenge for new agents with no established client base.  And with inventories so low the last couple of years I am sure the competition between agents is brutal.

@Cameron Lieverse  At least they asked you so whether it was planned or not it's good to know they are up front about it, if they were shady they could have just snuck these people in one the night and never said anything to you.  How long of a lease did they sign?  Or is it month to month?  

700 minimum.  My screening is done through my property managers.

I actually just started looking into the MFH market there so I know some basics and I know enough about the city to know what areas to avoid (I stay away from D areas).  If you want PM me and when I have more time I can fill you in...

@Paul Rumolo The prices have gone up a bit over the last 2 years and the inventory is still low and demand still strong so it doesn't seem to be slowing down. But the average price of SFR I think is around $290k so compared to California it is still a deal. Even in nice areas like Summerlin or Henderson you can still find nice homes for about 1/3 to 1/2 the cost as the same type of house in California in a similar area.

I use a local property management firm there and they've been really good to work with, and my Realtor I found through talking to a few first.  He's a good guy and I will continue to work with him.

@Paul Rumolo I think that's a common theme with a lot of California investors right now, the prices.  I was trying to buy fron 2013-2015 here and even then it wasn't easy, not much inventory and rapidly climbing prices.  So that's why I decided to look elsewhere.

I am currently invested in Las Vegas and found some great deals when I bought just before the prices really took off.  I have great tenants and have had no problems there at all.  I still like it as a place to invest due to the demographics, new sports teams and other projects like UNLV expansion, new resorts and convention center.  To a lesser extent I am also looking in Idaho and Utah, although I won't be in a position to do any more deals until the end of next year at the earliest.  

@Paul Rumolo Yes I am currently only invested out of state and future investments will also likely be out of state.   Not that I think California is a bad place to invest, it's just gotten so expensive it's hard to find anything that works for me from a financial perspective.