All Forum Posts by: William Hochstedler

@Brian Stutzman

Thanks again for keeping us informed.  

You might suggest to those trying to help protect the less fortunate that they could start with usury laws.  If tenants weren't paying 78% interest for payday loans, maybe they could pay their rent on time.  

Late fees aren't interest. They are a service charge for cost of collection--which has costs independent of rent.  Subsequently linking it to rent amount as a percentage makes no sense.

Application fees are tough.  I understand that an application and credit check for every adult can add up, particularly if rejected.  But to cap it at a flat rate doesn't make sense either.  It shouldn't be a profit center for landlords (although I've been tempted with a couple of my units in Ogden).  Perhaps like RESPA and security deposits, there could be some sort of rule that these services have to be billed at actual cost?

I don't know the market down there, but this could easily be a $3M+ property.

I wouldn't over think this too much.  Just let the owner know you are interested in purchasing the property and see what they have to say.

@Bastian Kneuse

That's a pretty open ended question.  There are a couple of projects going in the works and a lot of new commercial still happening in Ogden.  

Utah's fundamentals are terrific and I think it will continue to out perform the country in general.  We can put a lot of new housing on line before we have sane inventory.

I'm still bullish on Ogden for reasons above.  Take a look at the footprint of the FrontRunner.  Ogden is still the least expensive real estate served by mass transit in the Greater Salt Lake area.

Are there a specific projects that you are considering or are you just doing background on the market?

Just to chime in on the title of the thread. One of the problems we've seen in Utah since 2016 really is the decline in available SFR inventory. Although rents have increased, they have not increased at the same speed as property values.

This means that rent to value ratios on single family homes started getting less and less attractive starting almost 5 years ago.  To find value, investors have been looking for assets that have higher barriers to entry so they don't have to compete with the owner occupant crowd.

As recently as 3 years ago, it was not uncommon to see a decent cash-flowing single family property in good condition that was fairly rent ready.  Those started drying up as owner occupants started buying homes above appraised value and often with deferred maintenance.

In about 2018 investors really had to start shopping different asset classes where they weren't competing with FHA loans etc. Owner occupants started looking at duplexes and the occasional 3-4 unit depending on configuration driving those prices up to unreasonable levels. But we still see small triplexes and fourplexes with only studios and one BR at relatively sane prices for this reason.

Subsequently, investors moved on to the 5+ unit class that was unavailable to owner occupant loans to find anything that made any sense.  And one could argue that these have become overvalued.

Now a lot of investors have moved on to new construction (and often 5+ units) because the cash-flow on existing construction is similar (or worse) than new.

So there are good arguments about scaling that multi-family provides. But hedge funds did just fine buying SFR's from 2009-2012. @Jay Hinrichs can probably tell you about how to kill it with SFR's when the market makes sense for it.

But those days are gone and we're just looking for anything that isn't entirely overvalued from a return perspective.  That's why your seeing multi-family.  And particularly multi-family new construction.

I don't believe home inspection requires a license.  Most have certifications.  Almost every home inspector that I know in Utah right now are looking for people to help conduct inspections and will train.

I'd try calling a few.

Good luck.

Right?  There could easily be $50K margin of error on this.  Without a very local perspective, it's impossible to say.  Where's the material that you remove going to go?  Will there be any geological requirements?  What is going to be required for site containment?  Are you dealing with UDOT?  Etc, etc.

@Charles E Nielsen  Where is this frequently done in the area?  There are some in Park City and on the East bench in Salt Lake.  But I don't see this being done in remote areas where the land cost doesn't justify the improvement.  Occasionally, we'll see a driveway put in on grade like this to access 2000 acres behind.  But we just don't have any Sausolitos here. 

Start with the county and see what their requirements will be.  This will most likely be VERY expensive.

Hey Adam,

Real estate licensing is state specific.  You will need a license in every state you wish to conduct business.

Look for a brokerage that only charges you a per transaction fee.  So you're only paying when you do business.

Most brokerages will require that you join an MLS and Realtor associations. A MLS subscription is almost a necessity if you are helping buyers find homes or listing them for sellers. The Association of Realtors is where your forms live which are also critical to a part time business of helping people buy and sell real estate. The cost of this will vary from board to board, but assume this will cost $1500/year annually in Idaho.

View the requirement of affiliating with a broker as a good one.  If you are transparent when shopping with a broker that you are doing this part time and only intend to do a few deals a year, there should be no issues.  Find a broker that will provide full support to you in this arrangement.  Particularly starting off, your broker can be an invaluable resource to help you navigate the business.

If you're serious about wholesaling, definitely start attending your local REIA's. That's where everything wholesaling in Utah lives.

UtahREIA

SLREIA

Utah Valley REIA

Stay tuned into nureia.org.  They met monthly until pandemia.  The main problem was that the venue where the meetings were held became unavailable indefinitely.  I will send a note to the board to make sure that the Ogden meetings are virtual or simulcasted for the Logan folks.

At the very least, get on the mailing list here: https://www.nureia.org/email-s... That way we can keep you updated with any developments including meetups etc.