All Forum Posts by: Robert Ellis

 same with us, we study infill every day though through case examples. the best part about infill is no risk. buying lots like what builders are doing even national builders still are shifting the risk to local land developers. my recommendation is to look at permitted uses, price per acre, etc. if you want lower risk buy a larger tract of land from a large developer out of a 100+ acre development to lower the risk. if you are doing it from scratch work with a group who's doing subdivisions. you can go and read the subdivision plats in your recorders office online every county has one. in columbus where I do the majority of our development we are specifically starting to target zones where the economics are also favorable. I'm not sure why you'd target mobile home parks that's one of the hardest to entitle. if you want a scalable strategy for 10+ years stick to residential horizontal, apartment, etc that is more common for your market. 

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 you shouldn't buy new builds. build them yourselves. I can do financial modeling with you and talk to other new build investors it's a slow growth plan. build directly at 25% below the market and also identify land too. increase unit counts and get better economies of scale. single family homes will never perform like a three story walk up apartment. we build a stacked triplex in Columbus Ohio with a picture below, if you are set on Dallas look at land prices and see if the economics help. 

have you thought about new builds? or build to rent development as a strategy? opens up a lot more markets and opportunities. you can build a 400 square foot unit or 4 of them or 3 of them or any size unit you want on any lot. 

 imagine building as well at 25% below market prices. not only does new construction sell at a premium to existing inventory but it also helps you enter the market more competitive. you can accelerate this massively buy having a strategy to consistently position yourself at 25% below the market. like fix and flip. I think that would be my best advice. I was in flips and existing inventory in Columbus Ohio for 10 years and after old houses went over budget I started to modify my strategy to represent more of a market mover and new construction does this. it's been 2 years and haven't looked back. I moved to miami florida to study the economics and help apply it and it was a capital market as well. if you don't live in a capital market like Chicago, New York, Austin Texas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, california or miami florida I'd recommend moving to a market like that too. it will change your life. 

 can you show me your source in Miami that says ew have 8 months supply? miami dade county has more people moving to it than many cities and very limited land.

https://comreal.com/two-reports-highlight-miami-as-a-top-gro...

miami has been appreciating and at double Floridas rate. you can't put the two in the same category it's not even close. same with Broward or west palm beach you can't lump them in. 3 totally different markets. 

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/12/13/florida-housing-mark...

my home city in columbus also has similar stats but I doubt that miami is a buyer's market my friend I'm sorry. Columbus and affordable areas just like your market have the same. you can't compare sarasota to miami either. this is condo market not housing. palm beach or fort Lauderdale aren't the same. they are more horizontal markets. miami has the 3rd tallest skyline in the country after Chicago and New York.

I don't think there is a market for that personally. land development is done on a very local basis and isn't a service many CRE brokers use. CRE brokers are the largest and as a developer we wouldn't look at that. We would go to soil engineers or others. I don't think there is a middle area where people are looking for this info and I think it wouldn't be accurate for th markets we work in like Columbus Ohio or miami florida

 design one for yourself. think about your market. like in columbus we have infill lots at 30x120 and so we developed and designed a house for ourselves. we build the same house and continue to Make modifications. it's the only new build we offer to build for clients. that's just my opinion. architects we didn't even use we looked at national builder Floorplans and decided. our typical lot is 3000-4000 square feet that we build on 

our market is in Columbus Ohio and we are currently doing infill as a strategy. single family home by right can be built on any infill lot in columbus but for multifamily this strategy becomes part of entitlements and rezoning. 

For that reason, we prefer fast scalable strategies that are repeatable and allow compounding faster for new builds than a build to rent triplex. does anyone have a similar strategy? that found that building new single family homes was much faster as a strategy and should be a part of your toolbelt?

I spoke to another guy at a conference who used to build 1-3 units before doing commercial and he said he wishes he still did the single family because it generates a lot of cash and is pretty simple. 

We are cementing our growth strategy as a local and regional builder and looking to grow into subdivision development so we control more land but wanted to seek advice in the forums about this. 

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