All Forum Posts by: Cody L.

If you're trying to sell these, maybe provide a bit more info?  Link to financials, pictures, addresses, etc?

This is like  "I have a car for sale.  It has 4 tires.  $20k"

Also, with few exceptions, I don't think this site is where you're going to find a buyer for a $50m deal. 

Source?  A quick google search shows this isn't correct.  I don't know where Houston ranks, but it's not even in the top 20:

The twenty cities in the United States with the highest murder rates (murders per 100,000 people) are:

1. St. Louis, MO (69.4)
2. Baltimore, MD (51.1)
3. New Orleans, LA (40.6)
4. Detroit, MI (39.7)
5. Cleveland, OH (33.7)
6. Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
7. Kansas City, MO (31.2)
8. Memphis, TN (27.1)
9. Newark, NJ (25.6)
10. Chicago, IL (24)
11. Cincinnati, OH (23.8)
12. Philadelphia, PA (20.2)
13. Milwaukee, WI (20.0)
14. Tulsa, OK (18.6)
15. Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)
16. Indianapolis, IN (17.7)
17. Louisville, KY (17.5)
18. Oakland, CA (17.1)
19. Washington D.C. (17.0)
20. Atlanta, GA (16.7)

Thanks for the background.  Glad that he's walked the walk.  I keep having youtube videos suggested to me that are done by people who are big on youtube but when you look into their experience in the given topic, it lacks.

Why criticize someone from benefiting from low interest rates?   That's the whole 'trick' to this game. Find a way to maximize your benefit from whatever economic environment you're in.  

I hear people bring up this guy a lot (D. Green).   Does he own and manage a large portfolio or is he popular from talking about RE?  

Just curious -- not trying to hate on the guy

I use Buidilum and keep being told it's not approrpate for my level of units (~2000).  I don't have many issues with Builduim but one beef I have with other software is, unlikley buildium, trying it out is a giant pain.

With Buildilum you go to their site, hit "try now" (or whatever the button says), put in a name/email and boom, you instantly have a trial account that's fully functional.  Load up your data, play around.  If you like it, give them your payment info and you're off and running.

Hard for me to believe the other options are so much better when they refuse to let you see them. And no way I'm switching 15 years of data, 2000 units, 20+ users, 100's of vendors, because a company claims to be better. 

 the "1% rule" has lasted so long for a reason.  If you don't get 1% of the purchase price in rent (in the case of a $250k home, that would be $2,500/month), it's very hard to cash flow.  Your numbers prove that out.

"But there are no homes that meet that rule"

Well then there are no homes that cash flow.   That's not uncommon.  Just means the price of housing is high relative to rent.   Only way to 'fix' that is:

* find something that's maybe $180k, put $20k into it, now you're into it for $200k, but you have a nice rental you can get $2k/month for.

* look at other property types (5+ multi will normally cash flow more). 

* go to less desirable areas (the more in demand the area, the higher the price of the home vs. it's rent)

 Private money is a lot more competitive now.  A year ago private money was 8% when banks were at 3%.  But now banks are at 7% and private money is at 8-10%.  So going private isn't much cheaper.

I'm doing a lot of private money loans and I'm not even looking for that business. But if someone is buying a property for a good price, and I'm doing a 70% LTV, I'll loan at 8-10% all day long. At that rate it's better than what I'll get from buying something.

I keep seeing this said, as I keep buying good properties in good neighborhoods of Houston (next to $$$ homes) that are 1%+ all day long.  No way I'd buy a sub 1% property.  With rates today you'd never cash flow.

I just put an apartment complex under contract that's in a super hip area of Houston.  I'm paying right at $100k/door and the rents are just over $1k/unit/month.  I don't love the #s (since 1% is my floor), but I happen to own a ton of stuff next to this one so it's worth it to me to buy it at that price as I have near $0 management cost.

Look for apartments for rent.  Focus on the ones that would be a fit.  Find ones that have long days-on-market.  Most important step:  COME UP WITH YOUR PITCH.   When you reach out to the owners, don't say "Do you allow corporate rentals?"  Instead tell them up front what you want to do, and why they should let you do it.

We have a lot of people who lease our properties for STR. They all came about it the right way. People who started by asking "do you allow corporate rentals" simply get an auto reply link to a site that talks about STR.

(PS:  Of the 100's [I mean 100's] of people who have reached out wanting to do STR, that I've sent to our site that talks about how to do it, know how many even replied back?  Maybe 2-3.   So don't be that guy.  If you're able to get a 'warm reply', work that lead.  Like you would if you were doing sales)

That's a hard one my man.  Most brokers in Houston are plugged into most buyers.  Meaning when they have a seller, they'll call one of a small handful of known closers and get the deal done.

It's hard to get on that short list.  And it won't happen though bp posts.  I'd see who's actually doing transactions.  Reach out to them.  Introduce yourself.  Tell them why you're the buyer you should call (over the guys that they know close quick, no re-trade, etc)

Most likely you'll have to get a few retail (loopnet) deals under your belt so you get a rep as a buyer.   Then it'll snowball.