All Forum Posts by: Mark Rogers

If the house is your personal residence, IberiaBank may still be a good option.  They have been acquired by another bank, and it's been a few years since we put our heloc in place, but a few years ago they would go to something like 89.5% on a heloc.  I've also heard good things about Troy Duke at Arkansas Federal Credit Union.  

Q3 numbers are out, and Arkansas home prices continued with slow steady gains for much of the state. Central Arkansas prices were up 0.36% for the quarter and 2.1% for the year, and Northwest Arkansas prices were up 0.72% for the quarter and 3.9% for the year. Pine Bluff and Southwest Arkansas both posted quarterly declines but remained positive for the year.

If your boss is willing to cover most or all of the costs of obtaining your license and you expect to remain in Arkansas after graduation, you should strongly consider it.  We own a real estate investment firm in Central Arkansas, and it is important to us that our assistant have a real estate license to make sure that we stay on the safe side of Arkansas real estate license law.  Having your license opens up more things that you can do for the company without violating the law.  I agree with Ivy about the expense of obtaining and maintaining a license, and it's unlikely that I would have tried to do that at my own expense while I was in undergrad.  If your boss is willing to cover most or all of the costs, regardless of whether you make a sale this semester, it would be excellent experience and would give you an advantage when it comes time to interview in your chosen field.  Best of luck!

@Matthew Reid   The total number of foreclosures is low in Arkansas, but when you look at a per unit rate, it's pretty high, ranking 41st, with 1st being the lowest rate and 50 being the highest rate.  Foreclosures in NEA are much lower than in Central Arkansas, so your take probably helps to explain that gap.

@John Wijtenburg I completely agree. We'll pretty much always be in the market, and I'm actually pretty excited that we've managed to get started and thrive in what might be the toughest foreclosure market that we're likely to see for many years. The comparable price range in our market is lower than in yours, but I very much like the middle third of our market. On CRE, I heard an interesting podcast the other day that echoed your take, with a CRE guy referring to commercial retail as a "damaged asset class" with increased opportunities.

Foreclosures have continued their decline to a 14-year low. Arkansas foreclosures are down 23% from Q3 2018. Two points: (1) the Arkansas numbers may be skewed a bit because of a temporary pause due to flooding; and (2) this does not even vaguely resemble the run-up to the 2008 recession during which foreclosures were at all-time highs, cures were at all-time lows, and lending was notoriously loose. Attom Data report

There have been failed attempts at passing a state statute to set minimum standards or something akin to a tenants' bill of rights, including in the last legislative session, but no state statute has been passed yet.  Code enforcement still enforces minimum standards, and the Arkansas Secretary of State is currently suing a landlord for leasing properties before clearing code violations.  

I just got back from John's boot camp in Denver and loved it.  He is genius level at sales and does an excellent job explaining the science behind why he does things the way he does them.  He walks through the sales process from beginning to end with flow charts, examples, role playing, and on-the-fly scripting to address issues that members of the audience have encountered.  The average attendee was more sophisticated than I've grown to expect from seminars, and the ratio of pretenders-to-contenders was extraordinarily low, so audience participation was high quality.  Last, but not least, there was no upselling.  We're supposed to get an email in a few days with more materials and with information on other products and services that John offers, but he intentionally didn't even tell us what products and services he offers.  

I don't have similar data for rents, but here is the data for Fort Smith.

Central Arkansas home prices posted a small but solid 2.44% gain for the second quarter of 2019, continuing the trend of alternating small quarterly gains and losses. Northwest Arkansas continued its trend of continuous small quarterly gains, up 1.95%.

John Martin is a CCIM, broker, and principal with Newmark, Moses, Tucker Partners.  They have professional inhouse management for multi-family that isn't quite large enough to justify onsite management.   He's a friend and a seasoned veteran.