All Forum Posts by: Paige Harrison

Hi Paige, there plenty of opportunities out there, my clients are involved in institutional grade properties across the country. My recommendation is to choose cities in safe and economically diversified areas with above-average income and population growth. It can also be safer to diversify your investment properties across the country. There is still good money to be made in AZ, FL, GA, TX and other states, however, picking the right submarkets is key.

A very good source of local analysis is rereport.com

Hi Paige! I'm a relatively new BP member too and I love your engagement.  You're in the right place for guidance.  May I ask why you are interested in WV?  (location choice is an interest of mine) I've invested and managed in New Hampshire and Maine (before I was a RE agent and now), so I'm happy to be a resource for you.  I own a multi in a city, a short-term rental on the water, and am looking to do more.

@Paige Harrison, there are certainly several ways to attack this, and each have their own upsides and downsides.  Owning a property directly, in my book, will always be active.  I invest local to where I live, and when I got started, my coworker's uncle was a handyman and did all my work for me.  That was 2011, and he continued to be my go to guy until 2017, when after 6 years a couple dozen renovations, and many more handyman calls, he decided he was going to start doing a cruddy job.

In the approx. 18 months I tried using a PM, I went through 4, before taking my properties over and self managing again.  

I mention this because with all real estate investments there are risks.  As others mentioned, building a trusted team of "boots on the ground" is great and necessary, until it isn't great, then you are the one spending time interviewing new managers, new handyman, new agents.  

You lose this responsibility with syndications, but you open up other risks.  You still need to vet your syndicators.  Phone calls, emails, reviewing track record, getting referrals, etc are all imperative due diligence.  You can typically learn a lot from these conversations.  I, personally, like syndicators that are operators versus just capital raisers, and I like syndicators that are building a real estate business.  I like syndicators that are laser focused on asset type and risk profile.  

The trade off is you have no control over operations, and your capital is illiquid until the sponsor decides to sell. There is risk on the trust side, that once you wire the funds, the syndicator will do the right things.  

While I am not in your shoes, I have spoken to a lot of physicians that have done OOS rentals and decide to move to syndications.  Few have had horror stories of their rentals, but the common theme is that even with turnkey rentals, and an established team, direct rentals are more work than they prefer.  The stories I hear are biased, because the entire purpose of the conversations are to discuss syndications.  Many times, these investors do still own their rentals, but after acquiring 3 or 4 they realize they cannot add to their direct portfolio with the time commitment needed.