All Forum Posts by: Russell Brazil

Quote from @Victor Ning:

Hello all,

My name's Victor Ning, and I'm based in DC. I'm new to real estate and would like to build a rental portfolio. I'd like to meet like-minded people here and grow together. 

Victor

 Welcome to BP. There is many DC investors here.

Let's hope so!

But this is not as big of a deal for the Boston area as it would be for other markets. Boston already has a plethora of multifamily housing, which largely doesnt exist in the entire mid-atlantic or southeastern parts of the country. Multifamily homes are primarily a thing in the northeast.

Quote from @Roland S.:

@Russell Brazil i am in TX... lol. What would you recommend in this situation? Thx russell!

 Go figure. Texas is one of the price non-disclosure states I was referring to. Youll need to hire a real estate agent if your want the data.

I'm a top 1% agent, and I almost never actually look at the MLS. Sales data is on thousands of websites available publicly. (Except in the few price non-disclosure stated)

Quote from @Ken M.:

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

Quote from @Rick Pozos:

When interest rates go from 3% to 8% in less than a year, YES prices will go down. It takes time for people to adjust to why their house is not selling. Then they lower a little, maybe get it sold. The comps are now a little lower. THEN market price is a little lower and again they have to be a little lower than that and on and on until we get to equilibrium.

If prices have NOT come down and there is lots of demand for housing in that area, prices may only come down a little, if any. In most markets, prices will come down plenty more over 2025 and maybe more in 2026. Just my thoughts.

 Has rising interest rates ever correlated to falling prices nationally? Nope. Rising interest rates have correlated to rising prices however.  Rapidly falling interest rates have correlated to falling prices.

Here is a FB post of mine from 2021 that predicted rising rates would correlate to rising prices.

We haven't seen a "normal" market for a while. But back before rates were reduced below the 100 year average,

how many "Days on Market" could an average property expect to be on the MLS before getting a bona fide offer?

or put a different way, how many months of inventory was considered a "balanced" market?

6 months supply is what's considered a normal market. However as inventory total units and sales has plummeted, that has skewed the data so that months of supply isn't really an accurate indicator. 

A normalish market, favoring sellers a little bit should have something around 5.5 million home sales per year nationally. This is what we were seeing in 2015-2017 about. In 2024 we had only 4 million home sales. I can look at my market locally and see we have on average right now 5,000 units for sale at a given moment. 10 years ago that was 16,000-18,000. So if inventory were to say double in my market to 10,000 units, that would show a huge jump in months of supply, but would not be reflective of actual deman because of the law of small numbers.

I think the US has about 1.25 million units available for sale right now. In a more normalized situation, that should be closer to 2 million.

Quote from @Rick Pozos:

When interest rates go from 3% to 8% in less than a year, YES prices will go down. It takes time for people to adjust to why their house is not selling. Then they lower a little, maybe get it sold. The comps are now a little lower. THEN market price is a little lower and again they have to be a little lower than that and on and on until we get to equilibrium.

If prices have NOT come down and there is lots of demand for housing in that area, prices may only come down a little, if any. In most markets, prices will come down plenty more over 2025 and maybe more in 2026. Just my thoughts.

 Has rising interest rates ever correlated to falling prices nationally? Nope. Rising interest rates have correlated to rising prices however.  Rapidly falling interest rates have correlated to falling prices.

Here is a FB post of mine from 2021 that predicted rising rates would correlate to rising prices.

Quote from @Brittany P.:

Chris, your insight is always appreciated. Our basic understanding is that it's best to put the deed in the LLC's name in case a tenant stubs their toe and tries to litigate. In the event we're found liable and there's some significant judgment against us, isn't it more beneficial to have the liability limited to the LLC as opposed to all our personal/business assets if the property were in our name? Interested to hear your thoughts...

Do you also plan on getting a commercial insurance policy? Is the property owned outright, or do you have a loan on it? If you have a loan will you be refinancing it to a commercial loan with the LLC as the borrower?

If you don't change the insurance, the new owner of the property would be uninsured altogether.

If the loan is in your name, and the the property is owned by an LLC, then that LLC offers no protection as the comingling pierces the corporate veil.

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

Sounds a lot of what they did in Washington DC, which now tenants know these laws and you have to pay them off in order to sell the property because they can lock up a sale for a period of time to delay it being sold. 

Yup, we've had that in DC for decades. Though in 2017 we were successful in having it repealed for single unit properties. Though they are currently trying to bring it back.

It basically amounts to legalized extortion.

This is a recipe for your appliances and copper to disappear 

Quote from @Jinglei Shen:

Seller is a real estate agent, based in Ohio, he owns an LLC to flip house and invest in RE, this property is owned by this LLC. 

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

Quote from @Jinglei Shen:

Hi Sasha,

Thank you for your response. My agent has found the financing contingency states that if financing is not obtained due to a low appraisal, the contract is void, the EMD must be returned to the buyer. The title company replied that when a contract is cancelled, they do not assume anything for the same reason. what they need is a signed agreement between seller and buyer telling them who gets the EMD. if there is no agreement, they will continue to hold funds until there is a mutual signed agreement. Seller is not willing to sign the agreement, he is being very difficult now.

Your thought is appreciated.

Is this a FSBO or is the seller using an agent?

 Have your agent pressure their broker