All Forum Posts by: Frank Wong

Never losing money in Real Estate is actually common if you are a buy and hold investor or know what you are doing. If you are not over leveraged and not forced to sell you have time turn it around.  Yes, there are lots of investors who lose a lot. Wrong market, wrong area, bought wrong price point, flipped and went bad, leveled up at a bad time etc. 

Back to making a $1m. Formula is pretty simple. 

1. Create a high income earning skill for yourself. Work for yourself or get a job and make money.

2. Save your money and invest in Real Estate 

3. Live a modest life and not level up and act like the Jones like they say. 

4. Repeat above for 15-20yrs boom $1m. If you are highly skilled and very focused you can get it done in 7-10yrs.

The Evergrande situation is a reminder that there is another side of real estate. That UPONLY is not the only direction and that over leveraged is the achilles heel of investing. That is always the thing that takes people and companies down.  I think the Govt will bail them out and take significant prefer shares of the company.  It will be interesting to see which route they will take.  If it was the US the Govt will bail them out and print print print. 

Pretty much all deals in this sellers market. If you have 3 other competing offers that have waived their inspection contingency and you don't, what offer do you think the seller will choose? Each market and property will be different so you will need to adjust for that. 

If you sell you need to ask yourself What do I buy next?  If you plan to buy in the Bay Area the new purchase will have similar returns. 

Foundation issues in TX is pretty common and similar to the ones in the pics.  Hard to tell if it's a major issue or not. If you want to get a more in depth report hire a structural engineer to inspect the home. 

The most common way to purchase in CA is through a realtor. Like @Scott M. said find a realtor in your local area that can represent you. Work out a fee to have them draw up paperwork. Have a title and escrow company handle the funds and closing of the transaction. 

Or you can try to do it yourself get a purchase contract and find a local escrow title company to handle the funds and closing. To me paying someone with experience is worth getting it done right especially your first FSBO.

Big hedge funds are moving into the SFR market to take on a new asset class. The increase in rents the last 10yrs and the ease of access to liquidity has made this a viable option now. I think the real reason is the decline of the dollar and yields from bonds.

10yr bonds are yielding 1.23% and 30yr bond 1.895% today. The yields are not high enough to keep up with inflation but more importantly it's not enough to keep up with returns needed to fund US pensions.  Bonds are suppose to be the safest investment from a risk perspective. If the yields are not enough and are declining what is safe and will yield more??? Real Estate. Multi-family was traditionally the vehicle but now the demand has increased to include SFRs. 

Real Estate is becoming the new US Bond. Something that is safer than equities but will yield more than bonds. The current US bond market is $46trillion (per wikipedia).  All this money will start to funnel into other assets.  I think the flight to safety is residential real estate. 

It depends on the context of things. Whats the list price? How many total offers? What market is the home in?  

In many markets $5,000 is nothing over list price. $50k over in my market is really normal with $100k+ very common. There was even a home that sold $1m over list in Berkeley with 29 offers. Was the buyer's agent shady here?

https://www.sfgate.com/realest...

With the limited information I read it as the buyers agent trying to gather more information for you so you can be fully aware of the situation. In this case the price was much higher than the price you placed.  You can decide to increase it or just stay put its really up to you. Now imagine if the situation was flipped. What if you wanted the house really bad and was willing to pay $50k more to get it. The agent never got the information for you and you went in with your original offer. Your offer got rejected and 30 days later once the home was sold you found out it was at a price you would have paid. You would be so pissed off if you didn't have the opportunity to increase your price. (This happens a lot)

Things may not be shady you just need to look for more information. This is a seller's market with inventory the lowest I have ever seen. As a buyer it is very frustrating but it is what it is. Some people just willing to pay a price and do the things some buyers are not willing to do. To win in this market you need a great agent that knows what they are doing, structure a strong competitive offer, be aggressive, and keep putting in offers. 

8hrs. There are 4-5hrs in each day which allows you to be the most focus and create the best work. Work on the most important tasks that requires the highest mental bandwidth in the morning. All small tasks later in the day. More time usually leads to poor quality work which will require you to go back and fix it. 

You Said "Closing in a few days. The seller has a new tenant with a one year lease that started a few days before we are scheduled to close."

I think you have to ask yourself why did the seller place a tenant on a 1yr lease a fews before you are schedule to close??? Doesn't make sense. What are they trying to pull here?