All Forum Posts by: Michael Zuber

How is the hunt for Fresno Investments going???

I Only invest in California, I have been doing it for 10 years and having a lot of fun doing it. There is nothing like owning California real estate.

Buy when stuff is on sale and sell into the run up that is bound to happen again.

Lots of great markets in California

I was 30 when I bought the first house. I sold a lot of inventory into the rise but I wish I sold all of it. Like others I wish I started earlier

Rich

I saw the same article and my blood boiled!!! I was so upset I had to write the following Blog Post Yesterday

Title: Some Articles Just TICK me off

http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/788/blog_posts/16095-some-articles-just-tick-me-off-

We need to stop the madness and if you can't or decide not to pay your mortgage you need to be out of the house inside of 6 months!!! What happened to clearing the inventory

Having been investing the last 10 years I can tell you there are several differences.

Hardest Part pre crash was finding a deal that made sense as listings had multiple offers inside of 24 hours most times

Hardest part post crash is investor financing

Easiest Part Pre Crash Investor Financing

Easiest part Post Crash finding a deal

Rental Rates are fairly stable if not rising in single family homes

Quantity of renters is much higher post crash

Pre Crash Everyone loved real estate

Post Crash everyone hates Real Estate

In the end everything is reverse of where you would think it should be

It pays to go against the grain.

For the record I like investing post crash :-)

I don't see the US suffering from Hyper Inflation until we lose the reserve currency status and given all the issues in the world that is less likely than ever. As you know the Reserve Currency of the world has never seen Hyper Inflation.

Could the Euro displace the Dollar - not a chance. In fact I give the Euro only a 50/50 chance of surviving another 2 years. If I was Germany or France I would stop paying for the sins of other nations.

Could the Yen displace the dollar. Not a chance. Too small and not growing, can you say lost decade * 2.

Could the Chinese Currency Replace the Dollar. This seems the most logical choice but until they have an open market with trusted accounts and financial reports it won't happen. Have you seen all the Chinese companies being reported with false financial statements. Not to mention the fact they will likely suffer their own real estate and bad loans crises in the next 4 years. So this could happen but it is easily 10 years out.

Could Gold or Silver. This could happen but the dollar would have to depreciate another 80 or 90 percent as both have such a small quantity of reserves.

So none of these are likely to replace the dollar as the reserve currency so hyperinflation is off the table.

My opinion only

Good Investing

Nice work, this can't be easy

Wow not a light topic. In an economy that is or at least supposed to be driven by the Consumer we need a couple of things to stop getting worse so we can start to heal and get better.
We need to reverse the trend in:
Confidence - I am afraid this won't happen until at best next year as I think data gets ugly the rest of the year. And it might take a new election to cause an inflection point.
Manufacturing - we still build lots of things but we need to build more and thus with the dollar losing value this might actual help but again this is years away at best as you don't just to turn on a new manufacturing plant.
Real Estate Prices or Property: A lot of our economy is based on property rights and unfortunately we had a big old party and over leveraged property and built too many mcmansions and we have to pay up for these sins. We have 3 to 5 years of pain left.

So in the end we need to get to the bottom of housing and suffer so more pain so we can start to turn confidence around and hopefully start building more stuff for the rest of the world to consume.

My guess is the reported Unemployment rate stays above 8% until after next election. And Under employment stays above 15%.

Yes move back and sell the condo. Take care of one action at a time and you must sell condo first.

Use this time to research markets and make sure your next move is to a market where investments fit your model.

Make sure the place you pick you can cycle your capital and keep growing

Don't stress over this phase as it is always hardest to get started.

Be positive and you will be fine

Rich

My most common loan has following framework.

I have to put down 50% of purchase price and then I get 9% fully amortized 15 year loans. Payments usually around $200 and I own the property free and clear in 15 years

No Balloon, no prepay, etc (but about 2,500 in upfront fees, points, etc)

So I don't get great leverage but it is better than nothing

Mike