All Forum Posts by: Llewelyn A.

@Mike Dymski

@Jay Hinrichs

@Account Closed

Mike, Jay, like both of you, I buy based on Internal Rate of Return (IRR) Analysis, not on calculations that only tell you what the current year return gives you.

I met a few BP members recently and showed them how large the Returns are and it's quite shocking. Those investing in Cash Flow ONLY calculations versus the overall return such as IRR don't realize how much money they are leaving on the table.

I don't blame them because it's just so easy to do those other simple calculations such as CoCR and to think that's the only thing you really need to know. 

The problem is that you don't know what you don't know until you learn something sophisticated and then you realize that the stuff you learned before just wasn't good enough to achieve MASSIVE returns.

I think the best kept secret is these more sophisticated calculations such as IRR.

The problem is even if I let the secret out of the bag, there will probably be 90% of Investors that will say it's too difficult to understand. And I agree! It really is difficult because it requires a mental and business shift of paradigm.

But like everything, if you put in quality work, you can get quality rewards.

I don't think if you look only at the net migration that you can know if the population is growing without considering the Birth and Death Rate over the years.

For instance, if a city has 1 Million incoming and 1.1 Million outgoing, giving you a net migration out of 100k, BUT because there are 8 million residents and there were 200k babies born in that particular year, with 50k deaths, you add all of this up and you get a net population GROWTH of 50k.

HOWEVER, this doesn't even paint the whole picture either.

From the 1.1 Million outgoing, most of them were renters in over crowded apts with roommates, and many of the roommates were not replaced but simply the remaining roommates decided to want more space, etc.

BASICALLY..... it gets complicated. Even the above is not really a full picture of all the factors that can go into calculation of predicting the future demand of housing for a particular City or Neighborhood.

Be careful how you interpret the data.

Just my 2 Cents.

My goal is to be the BEST that I can be at anything I want to do, including Real Estate.

If I become Super Wealthy, then that would be a side effect!

Day 1?! Well.... Day 1 was in 1998 for me when I bought my first Investment Property in Brooklyn, NYC.

What would I have done differently? Slapped my friends and relatives in the head who complained that they did not want to partner with me to buy more NYC properties because they didn't want to fix toilets in the middle of the night.

20 years later and I'm vastly wealthier than they are, to their regret.

Had I pushed the issue with physical violence, maybe they would have listened.

Incidentally, I hire a service for $50 to snake out a toilet, even if it's in the middle of the night. So the scenario where I am the one snaking out a toilet is just an excuse for those with very low risk tolerance.

Hi @Donnell Suares

First, I want the reader of this Posting to know that I only advertise my OWN apartment, not for others.

I use Craigslist a lot so I am very familiar with how it works.

The issue with CL is that there are a lot of SPAM Postings. A SPAM Posting is a single listing that is repeated several times. I think the purpose of the SPAM Postings is for 2 purposes:

1) It makes their Ad much more visible and 

2) It completely buries your single Ad so that in the 1st hour or the 2nd hour, your ad will move from the 1st Page to the 5th page where no one will bother looking for it.

Then, because your Ad on CL had only a 2 hour window of visibility to normal tenants searching CL, you obviously wind up either having to SPAM your own Ads or hire one of these Agents that do it... which of course, makes things worse.

When I know I have to find a tenant ASAP and I don't want my Ad to be buried, I post on StreetEasy.

Since I'm a Broker, it costs me $3 per day for my posting. BUT, that fee is worth it to me, especially for my own higher priced apts such as $3k or more per month. I don't really mind paying $3 for 30 days or $90 for a StreetEasy Ad.

StreetEasy will syndicate out to other websites like Trulia, Zillow and Hotpads. I forgot exactly which.

However, I have been getting good responses from it.

Hopefully this helps.

I am a Brooklyn, NYC Investor and Broker.

I will tell you that Brooklyn has hundred of thousands of Millennials living all over the City with several concentrated enclaves.

I just approved a Lease for a 2 bedroom, clean but not renovated 1 bath apt for $1,900 in East Bed-Stuy. East Bed-Stuy is not really a great place to live but is close to the Bushwick Millennial enclave.

Several years ago, that apt would have only been around $1,400 per month or less and you would have had to rent it out to either a subsidized family or subpar qualified couples.

The 2 Millennials that decided to roommate had their Dads as Guarantors. The Combined income was over $350k per year.

I can't tell you how many Investors I have known for the last 20 years miss the boat because they couldn't find themselves "Betting" on the trends.

I think if you can put your fingers on the pulse of the Market, you can easily beat the averages, by FAR.

However, not everyone has that kind of risk tolerance.

I personally am NEVER planning on retiring.

HOWEVER, I became financially free in 2004 when I was 38 after purchasing several multi-family properties since 1997.

Now, in 2018 which is 14 years later, I've expanded my Real Estate Portfolio along with a Property Management Firm, started a Brokerage and became a Partner in a Software Development Company.

Financial freedom is probably more the key than what you need for retirement.

If you are already Financially free, then you ALWAYS have the option to Retire. Many of us chose not to Retire!

I agree with most of what has been posted here about rent regulations having unintended consequences such as actually INCREASING rents over all!

The funny part about being an Investor in NYC is that by knowing the adverse effects of these rent control regulations, it actually helps me determine which properties are good to buy for future cash flow and appreciation.

I have often been asked why I stay under 5 units when I buy a NYC building. A major part is that under 5 unit buildings are not subjected to rent regulations (for the most part).

I also FULLY expect as the majority of Voters who are tenants will vote for their self-interest, which implies continuation of rent regulation laws or even enhancement of it.

I think a RE Investor that can thread the needle in Rent Controlled Cities can be INCREDIBLY well rewarded.

In fact, it's provides a very stable and consistent economic growth. If you think about it, because rents are held down (in NYC, there are approximately 1 Million Rent Regulated apts), in a downturn, there is little effects on rents in these areas because the drop in rents are still WAY above the rents that are charged in rent regulated apts.

It also creates huge demand for unregulated apts as the 1 Million Rent Regulated apts are very difficult to turn over. People literally live their whole lives in them because they just don't want to give them up. Why would they? It's hitting the lottery, literally as most rent regulated apts are given out by a lottery system! haha!

I'm actually fine with Rent Regulations in NYC but that's because I found my niche on how to capitalize on it.

I personally think that if you can't beat the majority, then try to find a way to make money from it. It's fairly easy if you really think about it.

There is an old saying in the Stock Market Trading game....

"You are only as rich as your last trade...."

If you keep buying and reinvesting the profits and never take anything back out, you risk it all.

So take some profits while you can before the next crash happens.

An Observation when it comes to Unemployment and Recessions is that if the Direction of Unemployment Rate is UP, you are very LIKELY to be in a Recession. Of course this is obvious as Unemployment Rises we have lower Economic Activities.

THEREFORE, if One were to look into UE and Recession, you don't look at when UnEmployment Rates are RISING, you look at when it is FALLING if you are interested in when the next recession will hit.

How does that help us? Well.... once you see the UE rate rise, you can wait until it starts to fall significantly after a prolonged Rise in a Recession and then buy your Investments.

There is one caveat here. This is making an assumption that there is NO Paridym shift in this relationship.

HOWEVER, I think there will be a HUGE Paradym shift with Automation and AI. Basically, the economic activities will rise HUGELY for very, very few owners of Automation. The Vast Majority of workers will have to cut down their hours or not work. Think Taxi Drivers in a Self-Driving Car future.

The world is changing fast. The question is where are we going to invest to 1) Not lose Money when the shift happens in full swing and 2) How to take advantage of that shift before it's too late?