All Forum Posts by: Michelle Watt

Hi Jonathan, it’s posts like this that make me so thankful to have found BP, with experienced investors such as yourself willing to reach out and have a discussion with newbies on their fears.

I joined BP two months ago and have since thrown myself into reading/viewing webinars/networking, which has been wonderful in assuaging my earlier fear of having no knowledge. Obviously I have a long way to go, but it’s individuals like yourselves who are willing to share their knowledge that have helped me move past that fear faster than I anticipated.

My goal is to invest in apartment complexes (learning to do the numbers on them right now, and how to pick a good market), and eventually build scale. My present fears are:

-Things just going south that are out of my control, esp. since I plan on investing out of state as I live in expensive Southern California :)

-What if I overlever and my apartments start underperforming?

-What if the assumptions in my model are incorrect? I have an investment banking background, so I KNOW what faulty assumptions/modeling can do to an analysis!

-What if the market tanks after I close a deal? This is a big one as I’ve heard many an investor say there is a correction coming…some say any minute now, others say four years out. I would still like to get started now somehow, as I feel if I wait four years and nothing happens, I’ll be kicking myself for it! All the more reason to be EXTRA smart.

I’d say those four are my biggest, but learning to assuage them one by one through daily learning and networking with experienced investors on BP. It’s been therapeutic enough reading this chain and seeing that others have the same thoughts, but like me, are determined to plow through make it work :)

By the way, 400+ units in two years is incredible. CHEERS to you, sir!

Haha ya I really need to be better with being colleagues of all the wonderful people whom I've exchanged with on here or at the meetings. But you get the point :P

Hi Kevin,

I'm a newbie based in Los Angeles as well (member for 2 months), and I go to the BP LA REI club meetings put together by Jon Huber and Jeff Greenberg (BP members). I guess BP doesn't allow me to tag just anyone, but you should reach out to them - usually mtgs are held in West LA, the last one was in Century City. You should definitely come, they are so informative. Both newbies and experienced members alike, many of whom invest or are looking to invest out of state as well.

Cheers - Michelle

@Joe Kling - I've only been to two meetings (one for each month I've been a member) and a lot, if not most, invest out of state. Jeff and Jon do for sure. My goal is out of state as well. It's just the nature of the beast in CA :)

Hey @Joe Kling! Welcome to BP, I'm an LA based newbie as well. I joined 2 months ago, and since then my RE education has increased exponentially. This forum is filled with knowledgeable, kind and supportive members and you'll learn a ton from them. 

Make sure to put in your keywords, and also Jeff Greenberg and Jon Huber are two BP members who put together monthly LA meetups. Those are really awesome. Not sure why my autolink isn't working for their names, but I suggest you reach out to them and come to the next meeting! 

Good luck!

hahaha @Seth C., sorry for the misunderstanding! Completely agreed - I just wanted to see the excel so I could understand how things are calculated, then I'll be fine with the software after a couple of them :) And great point about the brokers and getting out and networking - a meeting I had with a broker is what prompted me to get a model I could really understand! I think they go hand in hand.

Thanks for the advice and happy investing to you!

Hello and welcome @Tom Smith, I'm also based out of Los Angeles! I second Karen's question, out of curiosity is most of your portfolio based in Southern California?

Cheers and all the best in your investments!

oh awesome @Nick B.! Will take a look now. Thank you for pointing me to it!

@Seth C. - thanks for the detail on that. It sounds like at your level of experience and knowledge, REFM may seem like a good fit for you. If and when you try it, would love if you could come back and post your thoughts! I graduated from Penn, so if Peter Linneman works with it then I'm definitely curious about it.

As for me, I consider myself to be a complete newbie in real estate (going through the recommended books/webinars one by one), but I do feel I'm at the point where most of the recommended learning sources are saying similar things, and so my next course of business is to dig deep into the analysis. I'm a former investment banker who still works in finance, so for me (especially in the early stages), I'd prefer not to just have a software that does everything for me. I'd like to go cell by cell and figure things out that way, like why we are doing it and how it's being calculated. Maybe just my personality haha. 

It's funny how even though I've been on BP for only two months, my goals have changed from finding a fourplex in state (CA) to aiming for a ~20 unit apartment complex out of state (feel free to impart any advice if this is your area, accepting any and all opinions from BP members hahaha). I have not yet purchased and am currently learning how to analyze these deals - that said, I always like to see additional flexibility and hence reached out for excel based models to teach me.

Since I'm new, definitely not looking at ground up dev (yet, at least). The usual newbie looking for an older property in a more decent area are my criteria, while I research good markets. I think until then, Michael Blank and Real Data should get me through. Once I'm done with those, will probably post my opinions on them on here if I have anything valuable to add :)

@Seth C. - awesome, thanks for chiming in. Another BP member recommended Michael Blank's stuff and real data, so I'm glad I've got some validation from you! Can I ask why you are looking into refm, is there something in particular it offers?