All Forum Posts by: Mitch Miller

@Ashish Gambhir like most have said it will take some creativity or a lot of work to get a cashflow rental in the Triangle.  You will also be battling everyone else looking for the same.  I would suggest looking at Alamance county.  It is growing like a weed and there plenty of growth left to be had.  We are seeing people move from higher cost of living areas like Raleigh, Durham, chapel hill, and even Greensboro.   I have seen a lot more success from my friends getting cashflow in that area.  Best of luck either way!

@Kyle Carter People hit on the obvious, hype and excitement of a large name company like apple moving to an area.  I live in Raleigh and can tell you that the 40% was not all apple.  Raleigh is in a flywheel effect.  More companies come, more people come, companies see more talent in Raleigh and move to Raleigh, people see more jobs in Raleigh and move to Raleigh. So on and so on. You are also seeing the covid bump in that 40%.  Apple has been quoted a ton in papers and every realtors says it to buyers etc. But for raleigh apple was not the only reason for the bump in prices.

Taking a step back tho some people already touched on it.  A lot of research and studies have come out around high paying jobs make large impacts.  Apple said it would move 3000 jobs with average salary of 187k.  Reports came out that impact would be 7x that.  those 3000 jobs would get coffee and need dry cleaners and cars repaired etc.  The impact of job growth in the market is something I always look at because of this 1 job is not just one job. I think investors see it the same way and invest that way too leading to bumps in prices if they start to see a trend.   

I would google commercial real state firms in the areas you are looking for.  I would also go to LoopNet and other commercial aggregators and look at who is listing the deals and reach out to them.  Good way to build a list of commercial firms in that area that have some deal flow. 

@Melissa Sejour Its a great question we all had starting out. I would figure out what your goals are.  Real Estate is a large asset class that has many different strategies inside of it.  Are you looking for cashflow, appreciation, maybe even depreciation.  Once you have your goal figured out it will help you dive what areas make sense for your goals and budget. While @Phillip Austin mentioned Raleigh is a higher returns its just very much a appreciation market, you will not find rentals that cashflow, so depending on your goals its a good or bad market. I hope this helps you land on goals, then you can dive deeper into where.

@Andrew Frank I would just throw my two cents into this conversation.  First dont take everything people say as gospel, There is a good chance what your consultant told you is not 100% true.  

I'd like to offer my perspective on this discussion. First, it's crucial not to accept everything you hear as absolute truth. There's a good chance that the information from your consultant might not be entirely accurate.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the projection of 5,000 new homes over the next five years breaks down to only 1,000 homes annually. Given that investors often mention that 10 families move to Wake County every day, 1,000 homes per year should be quite manageable given the growing population. I've also attached an image showing a significant year-over-year decrease in housing starts. Real estate is a complex asset class due to the lengthy process of increasing supply. It involves multiple steps from land acquisition and zoning to construction and sale, typically spanning several years. Consequently, during prosperous times, the industry struggles to build fast enough, and what we're currently seeing are the completions from previous boom years. Presently, fluctuations in lending rates are affecting developers' ability to initiate new projects, leading to a foreseeable decline in new starts—this cycles repeatedly. With an ongoing housing shortage, I don't believe that even a correct prediction from your consultant about the rate of new housing starts would significantly impact the market. Apologies for the lengthy response, but I hope this adds value to your understanding. If you're ever in town, I’d love to meet for coffee.

I have had good luck with Allegacy out of Winston Salem. They in the past have been able to work on the LTV and make some things work. I would at least look at them.

Welcome @Daniel Angelino to the Triangle. There are a ton of investor meet ups. I am in the the Raleigh/Cary area so all mine are here but if you can make the drive, its good stuff. I run pints and and properties in Raleigh we have a speaker every month and network before and after. Its always the last Thursday of every month at the ale house downtown Raleigh so this Thursday we have a meet up. There is also a bigger pockets meet up every second Wednesday every month at the Raleigh beer garden. Both of these events are free to come to and you dont need tickets or sign up to come. There are two large groups that do cost money NC-REI and TRIEA both but on educational and have networking events but have a cost to join and a lot of times cost per event. Either way, lots of places to go and this site as well is a gold mine of people in the same space doing the same stuff! Reach out if you need anything.

Quote from @Benjamin Carver:

When's the next one? 👀

 Every second Wednesday of the month.

Shall,

I would say you got some good feedback here.  As always the answer prolly is somewhere in between.  Ill share what I would do in your shoes and I am assuming you are a cashflow investor by your question.   First I would dive into your costs of your current rental.  Yes your taxes went up and those are not always controllable, but you have a lot of other expenses that are.  Check around for new insurance, look at new property management companies or even look into not using one if you only have one property.  You can also contest tax increases, so if you have any ground to stand on send in a request for it to be lower.  

If you still cant make it work, I would sell it if its an investment.  Some people will say that you could run at a negative cashflow while still coming out ahead, think 200 bucks a month out of your pocket but your principle pay down is >200 and you get appreciation. But if you are a cashflow investor this is not your goal so I would exit.  For those who say if it does not cash flow it will sell to a low ball offer, i dont agree.  I am assuming its a single family.  You might not get a great offer from an investor but if a family or person wants to move in they will pay you market price for it because they are not looking at it as an investment.

I think you are on the right path, if your goals are cashflow and it does not work around you look at other markets.  Don't take the advice of if you cant do it in your backyard you cant do it farther way.  An extreme example is someone in SF that cant do cashflow in their city should not think they cant do that in the mid west.  Now that said make sure you do your research, I also live in Raleigh and cashflow is hard.  There are markets within an hour of here that do cashflow more with out finding that needle in a haystack.  But there are plenty of markets that still cashflow but just dont expect to find them in hot/large markets like Austin, Raleigh, Charlette, Miami, etc.  

Hope this helps and keep your head up, you got a property under your belt and are pivoting and if you keep putting action into your goals you will get to where ever you are trying to go.  

Favorite night All month! haha see you all there