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Recently I complained that I had bought a book called “How to Finance Any Real Estate Anywhere” and found the concepts just too hard to understand. (Really, it’s like math - if you can’t add, you can’t multiply!) I mean, I knew that the author knew what he was doing. He just couldn’t explain it well enough on the page.
So anyway. I picked up Frank Gallinelli’s “What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cashflow” and found it absolutely fascinating. If you like numbers (or if you like the RIGHT numbers) and analyzing the heck out of every deal, this is the book for you.
The writer also has a website where you can buy software that can track your investments and a few other free calculators. Worth a visit.
This was our first investment property bought by my husband near Fruitridge. It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home, fairly typical of the neighborhood. About 1000 square feet with one purple bedroom and one blue bedroom. The kitchen was green - all in high-gloss paint. But since it was his first home he bought it from HUD in early 2001.
For $50,000.
It was a foreclosed home and everything was in pretty bad shape. But my husband understood instinctively that the rent in his apartment would continue to go up. The payments on this home however would remain the same.
He bought it with $500 of his own money. Since it was a foreclosed home, and he was a first-time buyer he put the rest of his 10% downpayment - $4500 on a credit card (getting a first trust deed for $45,000) and no one noticed. He moved in.
This is what we proceeded to do with the property: we fixed the holes in the walls, refinished the original hardwood floors, changed the drywall in the bathroom, replaced the windows, repainted the inside and the outside, changed the light fixtures, put in a new sprinkler system, landscaped the front and back, tore down the back patio. Then we refinanced and pulled enough money out to use as a downpayment on another house.
In today’s market, that first home is still valued at right around $235,000. Do you want to venture a guess on the return on our original investment?
But it doesn’t end here. We now have monthly mortgage payments of about $1100. The rent we collect is $1050. In a few years, the home will be paid off (or leveraged again to buy another piece of excellent real estate) and we’ll do it again.
So tell me first-time buyers, would you buy a home that looked like this?
… in 2008, according to the real estate section in the SacBee today.
In spite of all that negativity I feel pretty good about myself. Or maybe it’s because of it.
The more there are of the scared types, the better the arena for the real investors. Perfect! Who was it that said that: Be scared when others are greedy and greedy when others are scared.
They’re scared. It’s time.
… if you’re not a client. In fact, you don’t have to like either John or me if you’re a blogger.
You just have to admit we’re here to stay.
I spent the majority of the day today trying to protect my buyers in a purchase transaction and responding to this post. Well, it was fun.
I get the sense that a lot of people do not like real estate agents. And perhaps they have run into a few (God knows I have!) that we hope are out of the business now. So people are a little jaded and very wary.
Good for them.
An investment is an investment is an investment and should be considered very carefully.
That being said, I just heard (on audio CD in my car) Seth Godin’s THE DIP. And I think if you’re already invested in this real estate market and have no more to invest, don’t really want to sell but are watching home prices fall and all the negative news out there, you should read this book.
The Dip applies to everything, not just business. If you master the dip, you soar into success. Basically, the writer says that when you try something new there is the initial surge of interest that carries you through for a while. It’s new, it’s interesting, it’s fun. You might even have some beginner’s luck. But if you are in it for the long haul, you will inevitably run into the dip. And how you deal with it tells you whether you will succeed or give up.
Read the book.
Okay, fellow Sacramento Realtors - what is with pricing a home at 199,999? I understand you want to stay under the $200,000 mark, but seriously! At least refrain yourself and set the listing price at 199,900. The buyer gets the idea.
Even Metrolist has started to add a home at $200,000 on both sides of the $200,000 price.
A smart fellow Realtor looks for a certain amount above and below what his buyer wants anyway - the amount varies with the market. But if my client says she’ll buy a home up to $300,000 I will usually search between the parameters of $240,000 to $320,000. Who knows? The sellers might be motivated!
So instead of letting this drive me nuts, I did some research. Turns out there is a reason behind the 99 cent pricing (Thank God the MLS doesn’t have cents!) and the roots are economic. Go here for the entire story.
But feel free to call and scold me if I ever add too many 9s. Unless it’s a million dollar home. I’d make an exception there -wouldn’t you? But then, I’m the last Realtor in Sacramento not impressed by 9s. 
Sacramento real estate investors are (finally!) standing up and taking notice. The Handyman’s Special might be sold pretty soon. Now, with this being a short sale, it still has to go through all the right channels with the lender (Countrywide) to be approved, but since it had been approved earlier at $239,000 without knowledge of the pest report, this one should be a pretty simple “yes” or “no” based on price.
In a short sale, the lender is usually willing to look at only one offer at a time, so of the ones that come along, I’m hoping we get a decent enough offer to submit to Countrywide. That being said, there has been genuine interest. Yesterday and Monday felt like a hearkening back to the real estate boom market we had in 2004, what with the number of Realtors and others interested.
Want a closer look at the property? I plan on showing it Sunday between 9:30 and 10:00am. Feel free to come!
For all those of you concerned about real estate values falling in and around Sacramento, listen up! Today Elite Properties’ floor agent (me!) received eight - count it - eight inquiries from seven different people on eight different listings.
The buyers seem to be waking up and realizing there’s deals to be had around here!
While bemoaning the idea that none of my buyers want to buy right now and we’re hearing the “we’re holding off buying for now…” (By the way, never - NOT ONCE did I hear that when prices were headed up two years ago. Heard it from sellers that wanted more for their home - their houses are still on the market. Do we see a similarity here? Hmm… buyers?)
… That sentence got too long, so let me begin again. While talking about our potential buyers, Huck - my preferred mortgage consultant - and I got into an email commentary of the Sacramento real estate market and how it will end eventually. Here’s a direct quote:
“Here’s what will happen: Without [the buyers on the fence] constantly in (watching) the market, inventory in a neighborhood of interest will drop, then some house will sell
for a comparatively high price, it will then become “the comparable” for
everything selling subsequent, and we’ll be off on the upswing again. I’ve
seen it happen over and over…
“There’s one almost identical to mine that did just that and it closed about
2 wk ago, driving mine from about $850,000 to $900,000 in one shot. Now
there’s another one like mine pending for $895,000.
“Truly savvy investors are willing to buy BEFORE that happens, and are
willing to see lower prices for a short time before the rise…”
Something to think about!
This morning while searching the MLS and getting lost in all that real estate inventory out there for sale, I noticed a house on Priscilla Lane that is such a steal, I would write an offer on it today. Alas, I’m fully invested and my husband will definitely want to send me to be mentally tested if I thought about another home.
My ambition, like someone else mentioned in the SacBee a while ago, is to own entire streets. Monopoly player, for a long time (and Scrabble too, which is the right combination for a Realtor, I guess!) This real estate investor owned all the houses on the street he lived on and the Bee cautioned him that he was not “diversified!”
Let me fall back on my favorite quote from Warren Buffett again: “Diversifying is insurance against ignorance.”
But, back to the neighborhood: the Colonial area is largely ignored by investors and first-time homebuyers today for two main reasons:
1. There seems to be a general look of untidiness in the neighborhood, thanks to the vacancy factor of foreclosures, and
2. The zip code 95820 is shared by Oak Park, which we know not too many people want to move to because of the crime.
To combat that, I say:
1. Foreclosures have hit this area hard - which makes it perfect for you investors! and
2. 95817 is also shared by Oak Park - these are postal codes, not crime or wealth codes.
And the fact remains, if you’re looking for great deals, they’re all here! The average home is about 1000 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. Backyards are modestly sized and streets are cleaned every month on third Thursdays. (Yes, I did live there for a while - in a home we knew would be a good rental in a couple of years.) Most homes have real hardwood floors and if you get lucky, homeowners have put on new roofs and central air. Rent hovers right around $1250 a month. Property values are depressed now to about $180,000 but generally have been hanging around $250,000 for a turnkey home.
If you have an extra $50,000 to invest, you should be looking around Colonial! Consider these!
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