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2024 Deals We’re Doing with High Cash Flow and Rock-Bottom Rates (4.75%!)

2024 Deals We’re Doing with High Cash Flow and Rock-Bottom Rates (4.75%!)

Want a low mortgage rate? We mean a really low rate—like 4.75% in 2024 low. What about half a million in profit on a sneaky development deal? Or, maybe you’d settle for a quick house flip that pockets you $55,000 on a bad day. These aren’t made-up numbers; these are REAL deals that our expert investing panel is doing in today’s hot, hot housing market. And if you know where to find deals and steals like these, you, too, could be taking home huge profits like they are! Thankfully, they’re sharing all their secrets on today’s episode!

David and Rob are taking some time off to play pickleball, while Dave Meyer and the entire On the Market podcast panel join us today! In this show, we’re talking about the real estate deals getting done in 2024. Each expert brings in a deal they’ve recently done and showcases how they found it, what they bought it for, how much cash flow or profit they’re going to make, and advice to help YOU repeat these home-run real estate deals.

First, Dave will share about a cash-flowing on-market rental property he bought (while abroad!) thanks to his inventor-friendly agent. Kathy Fettke gives tips on getting a low mortgage rate on your next new construction rental and how doing so could massively boost your cash flow. Henry Washington walks through a quick flip that will make him $55,000 on the low end and the ingenious way he found this deal. And finally, James Dainard talks about the almost unbelievably good development deal he’s doing in Seattle that will profit $500,000 (yes, that’s half a million!).

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Coming soon

Watch the Episode Here

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FK1AxBOQA70123

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Help us reach new listeners on iTunes by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds and instructions can be found here. Thanks! We really appreciate it!

In This Episode We Cover:

  • How to score a mortgage rate in the four-percent range by buying new construction rentals
  • The three big housing market challenges of 2024 and how investors can overcome them
  • How to find cash-flowing, on-market rental properties by investing out-of-state
  • One of the smartest ways to find off-market real estate deals for flipping or holding
  • The one contract clause that is helping James make $500K+ on his new development deal
  • And So Much More!

Links from the Show

Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected].

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

2024 Deals We’re Doing with High Cash Flow and Rock-Bottom Rates (4.75%!)

How to Supplement Your Income with Real Estate (So You Can Do What You Love)

Why are rock stars turning to real estate side hustles to pay their bills? During the lockdowns, many musicians, gig workers, and creatives saw their income streams dwindle. There were no shows to play, no tours to attend, festivals were canceled, and human-to-human contact was limited as much as possible. As a result, famous musicians began to become real estate agents, mortgage brokers, investors, house hackers, and everything in between to pay their bills. And guess what—it worked!

Now, touring is back on, but those whose job is pursuing their passions still need extra income to take care of their bills during slow seasons or to build wealth. That’s where Juliet Lalouel from Heavy Realty comes in. Juliet is a Colorado and Hawaii-based investor and real estate agent who helps the music and creative communities find ways to fast-track their financial freedom to keep doing what they love. But her message doesn’t just apply to musicians. Anyone who loves what they do but wants more financial stability can take these lessons to heart.

Today, we’re talking about how anyone from any background can use real estate to supplement their income, pay their bills, and help them build wealth. Juliet shares why you may make a great real estate investor/professional without even knowing it and the beginner investments that ANYONE can try to start building a strong financial fortress, even if you’re a real estate enthusiast by day and a rock star by night.

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Dave:
Henry, did you start investing in real estate so you could quit your job or to help supplement something else in your life that you’re passionate about?

Henry:
Oh no. I started investing so I could make enough money to quit my job.

Dave:
Really, I, when I first started, I like, I was too dumb to know that that was even a possibility. I was just like trying to marginally improve my finance position. But obviously most people get into real estate to replace their W2 or 10 99 income. But today we actually have an investor and real estate agent who helps people use real estate specifically to not quit their jobs.

Henry:
Well, it just came out in Rolling Stone that many musicians and other members of the part-time and gig economy are actually turning to real estate as a means to make a living. And our guest today was one of the voices featured in this article where they are discussing why this is happening and how people can make a great income in real estate part-time to support their passions.

Dave:
Hey everyone, my name’s Dave Meyer. Joined today by Henry Washington and we are gonna be bringing on real estate agent Juliet Lalouel, who is working specifically with musicians, artists, other members of the part-time and gig economy to get into real estate to supplement their income.

Henry:
On the show today, you’re gonna learn about the many ways that you yourself can get involved Part-time in the real estate industry. We’ll talk about getting involved in the real estate services industry as a way that you can learn how the best goes. And in the second half of the show we’ll talk a lot about how you can get started investing in real estate part-time.

Dave:
Okay, let’s bring on Juliet. Juliet, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Juliet:
Thank you so much for having me.

Dave:
So you specialize with working with musicians, artists, and other people who are working part-time on something other than real estate. When did you realize that this group of people maybe needed some help getting started in investing?

Juliet:
So probably during the lockdowns in 2020 is when I noticed this the most, when a lot of people that were doing maybe professional touring, A lot of my world is musicians or people in the music industry, people that had jobs that shut down, which was obviously a lot of other people as well. Um, I noticed that a bunch of people didn’t know what they were going to turn to and a lot of people wanted to maybe move into a house that had more space where they could work from home, where they could do a podcast from home where they could be creative in some way from home. And they didn’t have the living space to do that. So they were trying to figure out how would I buy this place? I don’t know if that’s an option for me. And that kind of opened up a small door to where I was just seeing a lot of nos and felt like there was a lot of answers to these problems. One of which was either getting a real estate license and getting into the business at that time, of course, as you all know, is very good then. Um, and then in addition, you know, being able to understand what house hacking could do for people and really what investing could really do in terms of getting you into a property and then getting you into a better financial.

Dave:
So this all started during the pandemic, but I’m curious if this sort of for a lot of gig workers or part-time workers existed even before the pandemic. Like have you noticed that this group is maybe not as comfortable with real estate or investing in general?

Juliet:
Yeah, and I think that’s just a lack of knowledge and education. I think that there’s a large group of people that basically aren’t being spoken to in a way that they will be able to understand and hear when it comes to being able to buy your first house, invest in properties, it seems super far away and far fetched for a lot of people when it really is possible for so many. I mean, I’m one of those people that I had no idea what was out there for me until I started talking to the right people that I could really get a grip on what investing was and what real estate was and what that would open doors to.

Henry:
Yeah, you know what? I think that makes sense. So if you think about, uh, gig worker, typically what they’re doing involves them being on the move or almost transient in some ways. And when you think about real estate, it seems very like, I should be planted somewhere and if I’m not planted somewhere, then maybe this isn’t a thing I should look into. But with technology and the internet, especially during the pandemic, like distance wasn’t a thing anymore. You could go anywhere. You could learn from anyone. And now all these tools are in place where you don’t have to even own your own home in order for you to be a successful investor. And all the tools are out there for you. And so it’s great that people like you who understand what that lifestyle is like, can put that information, that knowledge in front of people to help them realize like, hey, you can invest and continue the lifestyle that you have. Right. So it’s a, I think that that makes a lot of sense.

Juliet:
Exactly. I know a lot of people that basically own multiple investment properties and they still rent out their primary house just because they’re moving around all the time physically, whether that’s because of work or they’re just never home, all of that to good stuff. And then in agreement with the pandemic, a lot of people were able to basically work remotely and that opened up a lot of doors for people that are touring on the road or on the road in various ways. You’re never really in one place. They were able to work really anywhere.

Dave:
So what is it then about real estate Juliet that makes it a good option for this subset of the population? Because if they can invest in anything, what makes real estate attractive?

Juliet:
I think that one of the things that makes real estate attractive for certain people is that it translates really easily from maybe one job that you’re into another, the skillset that comes from, you know, professional musicians or gig workers, there’s a lot of communication with strangers. Often you have to kind of put yourself out there, you kind of have to hustle. That is the exact same thing in real estate. Whether you’re a real estate agent or investor, there’s a lot of similarities that kind of can cross over. And so what I’ve seen is a lot of these people are able to kind of take those skills and transfer them into that. And that’s been really, really nice to see.

Dave:
Tell us more about that and what, what are some of the skills that you see people, you said communication, hustling. What does that translate to in the real estate industry?

Juliet:
Well, speaking from just specifically say the music industry where things are very cyclical, um, you’re gonna be going on tour, you make a lot of money, uh, you come back and you kind of need to figure out what your next thing is. Real estate is a lot like that. Often, you know, you have a deal or something and you really kind of need to be able to adapt really well and problem solve in order to get your next thing. Another thing that I’ve noticed is also maybe just like mental toughness that comes with a lot of this type of work, basically managing your expectations. Because in real estate, there’s, you never know when the house is gonna be yours. A deal can fall through, it can go crazy in haywire. And basically the music industry is very much the same, where you’re gonna maybe be promised an amazing gig that could possibly change your life and it might not happen because this other band didn’t choose you. And so like, managing your expectations, there’s this weird, um, mental toughness that comes from those types of things that you’re able to translate also really well into real estate.

Henry:
Yeah, I mean, makes a lot of sense. And when I think about real estate investing, there is a lot of, uh, especially when you’re looking for something to buy, right? It is a lot of getting on the phone with people, talking to them in the language that benefits them, allowing them to understand who you are, what you do, how you can be of value, why this deal should be yours, maybe what ways you can make an offer or curate an offer that’s gonna make sense in that environment. I would imagine that in your world there’s a lot of the same when you’re trying to book gigs or get people to understand why you should be the person that they should be reaching out to. It’s an entrepreneurial hustle, right? It it, it, it kind of transcends all, uh, genres of types of work.

Juliet:
Exactly. That’s exactly right. I mean if you think about it, these musicians are really kind of marketing themselves. They have to put themselves out there. They really have to show up. A lot of the times you can’t have a bad attitude otherwise you’ll be known for that and people don’t wanna work with you just like you would in other careers. And so some of that kind of coincides for sure.

Dave:
Okay, so real estate can be a powerful way for gig workers to build wealth, but as Juliet said, real estate can feel really out of reach for a lot of folks. So what are some of the ways for part-time workers to break into real estate investing? Juliet has a host of options and tips for you right after the break. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate everyone. We’re here with Juliet Lalouel talking about how to break into real estate investing even as a part-time or gig worker. Let’s jump back in.

Henry:
So with that understanding, in what ways do you think or do you encourage musicians or gig workers, part-time workers to get into real estate? Like how do you encourage them to get started?

Juliet:
There’s gonna be a few different avenues. And I mean, it all kind of also depends maybe on your personality or where you kind of see yourself. Because I know a lot of people try to put themselves in a position where they’re not really comfortable and you’re not really gonna last long. Um, if you’re kind of an introvert and you’re just going to be like trying your best to do all these cold callings and all this stuff, you might suffer. If you’re an introvert and you really like backend work and maybe admin, you can do TC stuff, transaction coordination. If you have that type of ability to look at spreadsheets and timelines and you like that stuff, if you’re a tour manager and you know what it’s like to manage a bunch of moving parts, stuff like that might trans translate to you, you know, so that’s kind of where I would recommend is first what, where is your personality?

Juliet:
Where do you wanna be? And you know, where do you see yourself and what skills can you learn in order to get there? And then apply yourself to that position because there’s so many different positions in real estate, whether you wanna be a lender because you’re good with numbers and you like finances or you wanna be a realtor ’cause you’re a people person and you wanna do those types of things and you love houses and you know you wanna be an investor because you love how architecture is and you’re fascinated by design. You know, there’s so many different things. Um, alongside with ISA, you can be an inside sales assistant or doing cold calls, like there’s so many options under the umbrella of real estate,

Henry:
You hit the nail on the head. ’cause oftentimes people want to do something either because A, it’s the only thing they know or b they think it’s gonna be lucrative. But you’re absolutely right. Like I tell people, when you’re thinking about what you’re gonna do in real estate, whether it’s uh, a job or whether it’s how you’re gonna find your deals, your strategy needs to be the cross section of your personality, what you’re passionate about and what’s gonna help you hit your goal. Like that intersection is the thing that you should do if you start doing things because you think it’s gonna be lucrative, but it doesn’t really fit who you are the second you run into a brick wall. ’cause we all know, no matter what you do in real estate, you’re gonna get punched in the face, right? And the second you get punched in the face, you’re just gonna quit because it’s not who you are.

Henry:
It’s not how you’re built. And you kind of have to be honest with yourself about who you are. Like for me, when I got into this, everybody told me you need to beat the streets and you need to door knock and you need to cold call. ’cause that’s what getting, what’s getting people deals. But that ain’t me. Like, it’s just the second I knock on somebody’s door and they curse me out. Like I’m gonna, like I’m, I wear my emotions on myself. I’m a devastated, right? Like, and I won’t stick with it, right? So I had to pick a way to get into it that I knew would fit my personality, but that would also help me hit my goals. And I think too many times people, they just dive in to start doing something. It doesn’t fit who they are. They devastated and they quit. And the only thing that makes people successful in real estate is the sticktoitiveness. There’s no secret sauce. You just gotta keep pushing.

Juliet:
Yeah. And I mean, with that, with that, um, tenacity to just keep going, that’s always extremely important. And I think again, you know, people from the music industry are really good at that. You know, in order to make it, you really have to push and keep going and have, you know, keep your chin up type of a thing. Uh, and with investing in real estate, it’s just the same. But exactly, I mean, I think it’s a matter of combining your personality and maybe like what’s great for part-time and gig workers is you can see how not only with your personality, but what does your time allow for? And how can you either a, make more time to do this real estate thing, whatever that looks like, or how is this gonna kind of fit into what you’re already, what you already have going on. So if that’s gonna be, you know, maybe you’re on the road a lot and you’re not really physically somewhere, then maybe the phones is something for you and maybe you’re, and if you’re introverted, maybe the phones isn’t something for you, but maybe back in an admin paperwork or something like that, you know, and you can be helpful to other people.

Juliet:
I think another thing that a lot of people forget, uh, in real estate, whether it’s investing or being a realtor, it’s really, really smart to remember that you can’t do everything on your own and you shouldn’t. You should have a good team, you should have good mentorships. And by team I mean people that fill in the gaps. So if you are not the outgoing, super good person on the phones, teaming up with people that are in order to help you find those deals is really essential. So there’s ways that you can kind of really scale by being with people that are, have the strengths that you lack and then understanding best where you belong and then just working really well at that. And then kind of growing from there.

Dave:
A lot of the, the tactics that you’ve mentioned so far are what I guess I would describe as like real estate services, like being transaction coordinator or being an agent, a lender, all really important. Uh, but in some ways is that just another gig for people? Like why should they do real estate or should, is that like a stepping stone to an actual, an investment or how do you see that and why they should do this over any other sort of job?

Juliet:
Sure. I think that some of this stuff for some people is a really good beginning avenue where you can kind of start and your, you can get your foot in the door and you can learn the skill sets in order to become that investor. Obviously you can start in as an investor right away, you can really study that and kind of dive in. But if that’s something that you’re not really willing or able to do in the beginning, this is at least getting you into that path and that position. And then learning from people doing the thing that you want to do, which I highly recommend, you know, is, is one of the easier ways to kind of get into something otherwise for most of these people. Being a multi multifamily investor, owning all of these things sounds so far away. For some, it’s easy for some to maybe do overnight, but for others it’s a lot more difficult and then they don’t ever really get into it. Um, this is a good kind of stepping stone to kind of get in the room with other people doing these things.

Dave:
Okay. So the, the stepping stones totally makes sense to me and I think for certain people, maybe even in particular gig workers, this is a really good way for people to start learning the industry. What are some of the common ways or some of the common tactics that you see gig workers and musicians take when they’re ready to actually go buy a property?

Juliet:
I would say the common steps I I often see are people that are going to get into projects, whether it be fix and flips where they can get in and then work with kind of a team to get, get into a property, they get educated on what hard money lending is and all of those things, and kind of get their foot into the door to better understand investing that way. That has been something I’ve commonly seen other people, obviously the BRRRR method where they’re gonna buy a property, they live in it, that works out very well for them and then they rehab it themselves over time, uh, and then refinance later. Um, that method has been, uh, something else that I’ve seen quite often. Another way would be house hacking where they are probably not able to make the entire mortgage payment all on their own, but with the help of, you know, either a co-signer or if they have roommates helping supplement the mortgage payments. That’s another popular way that I’ve been seeing people get into a house, they do a house hack, they live in it for maybe a year or a few years. They move out, they hold that property as a rental and they kind of rent and repeat.

Henry:
Yeah, I think house hacking is always a great way for anybody to get started investing. And I think one of the coolest things about house hacking is the flexibility, right? Because when you, when you think about house hacking, most people think, well, I should, I should buy a multifamily and I should live in one unit and I should rent the other unit. But there are ways to house hack in a single unit home. And I would imagine with gig workers who may not be in the house all the time, there may be opportunity for them to monetize where they live, even if it’s not a multi-family. Have you seen gig workers get creative with how they can monetize where they live?

Juliet:
That is the biggest recommendation I have for them. And how I see them do it successfully with getting their foot in the door to property ownership and investing. They start house hacking because they, they come to me because they say that they are used to having a lot of roommates and they don’t wanna have to buy something on their own. All of those things. And, you know, some people like to live that way and they want to live, you know, with their roommates or, or maybe they have a recording studio at home and they’re able to kind of make payments on that by having people live with them. And I often see that, um, you often see a lot of people that are then on the road that will rent out majority of their house and basically store their stuff in one bedroom and they’re gone most of the time. That works out for a ton of people. And I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t really think of that. Um, in the beginning they’re just like, no, why would I do that? I’d rather just rent, you know, it doesn’t really make sense. I move around so much. If you move around so much, this is a perfect opportunity and way for you to own a house, even if you’re not there all the time.

Henry:
I equate it to like a college student, right? Because if you’re a college student, you’re gonna have roommates, right? Maybe you like having roommates and being able to own a property and then have your friends or other gig workers who are doing similar work be able to come and live with you in a comfortable space around people who understand what they’re doing in their lifestyle, right? And uh, and there’s, there’s a, there is a benefit to people who are doing similar things living together, right? In terms of proximity of resources and things. And so you can have, you can curate this environment of proximity, you can share relationships, you can share tips of the trade tools, right? You’re getting all these ancillary benefits and at the same time you as the property owner are getting to house hack and live and invest and not have to spend a ton of money in order to do that instead of you guys going and living separately. And also wanted to highlight, I think what you were saying was people can create like a studio space in their, within their situation and then you can actually rent that space out to other, uh, people who would want to use that space by the hour. Is that something you see as well?

Juliet:
Exactly. Yeah. There’s a lot of that which is super smart. You know, you can, you can rent that out to other bands or other people that wanna come through and use a home recording studio or obviously you can operate your business out of the house that way and then you have benefits there. But absolutely that’s something that is, uh, quite popular.

Dave:
All right. So there are a ton of routes for gig workers to start investing or even to pick up some part-time work in the real estate industry as a way to get in the door. But if you’re trying to start investing without a full-time, W2 job, how do you get approved for loan? We do have to take one more short break, but when we come back, we have some solutions for you on that topic. So stick around.

Henry:
Welcome back investors. We are here with Juliet talking about how to strategically use real estate to help build a life of passion. Let’s pick up where we left off.

Dave:
So Juliet, I wanna ask you something because when I first got started investing in real estate, I did not have a W2 job. I was working like a couple of different 10 99 jobs. So this resonates with me, but one of the challenges I had was no one wanted to lend to me because it’s very difficult to get loans sometimes as a, as a contractor gig worker. Is that a challenge you see often with this group and how do they get around it?

Juliet:
So that certainly is a challenge and is a thing a lot of people use as a roadblock in order to no longer really go further beyond that. They think that just because they don’t have a W2 job that they can’t get a loan, which is incorrect. There are different loan programs out there that’re not based on your W2 and there’s also options for creative finance, whether that’s seller financing or others. But there are options out there that I think a lot of people don’t understand, uh, is out there for them. Yeah,

Henry:
You’re absolutely right. There are several options for people who don’t have a traditional W2. And I think what really needs to happen is exactly what you’re doing is A, the education and B, the exposure, the more people are surrounded by other investors who are in similar situations, they will be able to see what some of these other non-traditional gig workers or part-time workers are doing to get loans. It’s just a matter of education and exposure because you’re right, there are asset based loans like DSCR loans that are based on how much money the property is actually making or non QM loans, which are non-qualified mortgages, which are made exactly for have a traditional W2. Those are some of the easier things, but there’s even options with, if you’re in and around other investors, you’re going to meet people who maybe do have a traditional W2 and then you can partner with those people that makes you bankable. And yeah, you may only get 50% here, but now you’re getting 50% of something good versus 0% because you don’t think you can go and qualify. So there is a ton of options, but I think the key is, you’re right, it’s the education and the exposure.

Dave:
Yeah, that, that’s a great point, Henry. Totally. And I just wanna clear up what, ’cause this happened to me was 15 years ago now there’s so many more options now to get around this. Like DSER loans 15 years ago was not something, maybe they existed, I had not heard of them, but I don’t think that they were commonplace for investors. And what I had to do, which is still a good strategy by the way, is like I just found a partner who had a good job and who could get a loan . Um, and so like there, that’s still a perfectly viable way to do it, but just wanna call it that, like now this is one of the reasons why it is a good time, uh, for gig workers, 10 99 workers to consider this because the lending industry has really evolved. Mm-Hmm. and gotten more creative as a whole to enable, uh, people to buy these types of uh, properties. So Juliet, do you think that real estate can be a good avenue to support people doing something that they’re really passionate about? Because on this show we talk about the reverse a lot where we say real estate’s a way so that you can quit your job and people want to go full-time into real estate. But it seems like you’re sort of proposing or at least supporting a different theory here that it’s can support you staying in a job that you might really love.

Juliet:
Right? I mean, there’s a lot of people that I interact with in my world that say love what they do. A lot of them are, for example, professional musicians and they absolutely love that. Does that make you a ton of money? Not all the time, but is it something that you love? Yes. You know, and I’m all for basically following your passion, whatever that is, while also getting financial security. And I feel like real estate as an investor or as a realtor, whichever option you go with is going to help get you there and you will have more financial stability in order to do the things that you love. So a lot of people get into investing to quit their job. They hate their job, whatever that is. Maybe if it’s a, it’s an office space or what have you, they wanna leave that behind. A lot of people that I know love what they do, it just doesn’t make them enough money. So this is kind of the perfect thing to kind of support what you love by giving you that financial stability and better, stronger income.

Henry:
Amen. That is how we should view something like this. I think oftentimes people get into real estate and they think, well this isn’t really my passion. And real estate does not have to be your passion. Real estate allows you to do what you’re called to do, not what you have to do for money. If you feel like your passion or your calling is what you’re currently doing, then you can do real estate, which will give you the financial stability to be who you’re called to be. But you don’t have to make real estate your passion. And I love just having that as kind of your, your poster on the wall, your north star, your thing to look at. That’s what keeps you pushing. Don’t make it your passion, just remember that it allows you to fulfill your passion.

Juliet:
Exactly That. And something beautiful that some people might find out is that both can become your passion. I am very passionate about both worlds and you can really get involved. A lot of people in my network love having both, you know, and that has been a really nice thing to see. So yes, you may not love it all the time to get the financial income in order to do the thing that you love. You might end up finding that you absolutely love both and you can kind of live the best of both worlds.

Dave:
Awesome. Well, that’s a beautiful way to end. Juliet, thank you so much for joining us here on the show today. We will of course, put Juliet’s contact information in the show notes below if you want to connect with her. Thank you all so much for listening. We will see you very soon for the next episode of the BiggerPockets podcast.

Watch the Episode Here

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FK1AxBOQA70

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • Real estate side hustles that’ll help you make extra income no matter your experience
  • Why musicians and creatives make GREAT real estate investors
  • The best ways to start making money with real estate and how to find your perfect role
  • Beginner investments for anyone to start building wealth today
  • Financing your first investment property, even if you DON’T have a W2
  • Why real estate is the ultimate side income stream to support your dreams
  • And So Much More!

Links from the Show

Connect with Juliet

Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected].

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

2024 Deals We’re Doing with High Cash Flow and Rock-Bottom Rates (4.75%!)

Seeing Greene: Stolen Properties and Why Your Rate Doesn’t (Really) Matter

There’s a silent threat out there that most real estate investors have no idea about. It’s a threat that could take away all your cash flow, ruin your real estate portfolio, and put you right back to square one after years of work. And even the most seasoned investors aren’t immune to this threat—our own David Greene almost got caught in this trap and had to act quickly to escape. What’s the danger we’re discussing, and how do you ensure YOU don’t lose everything? We’re about to tell you!

We’re back on another Seeing Greene as David and Rob take your real estate investing questions and give up-to-date advice on what they’d do in your situation. First, a real estate investor sees his cash flow disappear due to rising operating expenses—should he sell the property or keep a low/no cash-flowing deal? Then, we talk about the silent threat targeting real estate investors—title fraud. An investor wants to know if a low mortgage rate on a subject to deal warrants a higher price, and Rob and David debate whether investing in expensive markets is worth the cost.

Want to ask David a question? If so, submit your question here so David can answer it on the next episode of Seeing Greene. Hop on the BiggerPockets forums and ask other investors their take, or follow David on Instagram to see when he’s going live so you can jump on a live Q&A and get your question answered on the spot!

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Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 9 45. What’s going on everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast here today with a seen green episode for you and I brought back up Rob Abasolo. How are you today?

Rob:
I’m doing well. I’m excited. I’m stretchy, I’m stretched. I’m

David:
Stretch. Were you dabb just now. Was

Rob:
That a I was dabbing. Yes, that’s right. I think I’m doing it wrong, but I believe that’s what the children

David:
Are doing. You got to do it again and then look at your armpit. You can’t look where you’re dabbing

Rob:
Like that now.

David:
Yes, there it is.

Rob:
Okay,

David:
Dabalicious. In today’s episode, we’re not just going to be talking about dance moves. We’re going to be talking about a lot of real estate related topics, including title fraud and how to protect yourself, how to value lower interest rates when considering a sub two deal. If investing in Hawaii or other high appreciating markets is still an option, how to protect yourself as a short-term rental investor. What to do when positive cash flow disappears. A lot of people going through this as interest rate and taxes are going up and rents are not keeping up, getting into the trades, recasting loans, all that and more on another amazing fire episode of Seeing Green.

Rob:
I will say, hey, the first question, a little eyeopening, you may learn something. I didn’t know that this was possible, so hopefully this helps some of y’all prevent that.

David:
Alright everybody, we’re going to get to our first question, but before we do remember, head over to biggerpockets.com/david and submit your question to be featured on this great show.

Bobby:
Hey David. My name is Bobby Kemp. I’m from Long Island, New York and my question to you is what should I do with my single family home that’s also new construction in Rotunda West Florida? So I’ve had this home for about a year and a half now and I’ve been renting it out almost the entire time. Cash flowing great except now my tenants are about to leave at the end of March and my private manager has told me he’s kind of worried that we’re not going to be able to rent it right after because rental market’s not that great and on top of this, my mortgage went up, so I’m penciling the math out and it doesn’t look like I’m really going to cash flow with anything at all. Now I’m in a bit of a tough spot there and on top of that I’m in contract as of a couple days ago on a triplex in the St. Petersburg market. I’m going to house hack that and really make the most of that. I really want to make sure I’m set up for success, really, what should I do? Sell the single family home, 10 31 or just sell it or just keep it and really do my best to cashflow even just a little bit. Lemme know your thoughts. I really appreciate everything you do at BiggerPockets. It’s helped me tremendously in my journey with real estate so far and I look forward to hearing what you say.

David:
Well, thank you Bobby Kemp and shout out to all of our long islanders out there. A couple of my buddies, Chris Weidman and Aljamain Sterling are from All Long Island and they’re real estate investors as well, fans of Seeing Green. So let’s break down your situation. First off, great energy. You could be a podcast host. You’ve never thought of

Rob:
It. Well, hold on. No, don’t get my ideas. These are ideas.

David:
Rob wants to keep his job. Second off, if you guys were listening to this on YouTube, you would see that Bobby has a strong resemblance to Colby Covington. We got a lot of UFC coming through in this clip and speaking of UFC, he’s trying to figure out if he should fight to keep that property or let it go and tap out. What do you think, Rob?

Rob:
Well, initially, I mean it was a bit of a rollercoaster because initially he said that it was cash flowing great, and then something happened with his mortgage and now it’s not cash flowing at all. My guess is that they had an escrow analysis, taxes went up and now his mortgage went up.

David:
Maybe insurance too.

Rob:
Oh yeah, insurance could change a lot. Probably that. So if that’s the case, listen, there are a lot of ways to build wealth and real estate. Cashflow is not everything. With all that said, I prefer to make some cashflow, so if you’re just breaking even on this bad boy, I would say sell a thing and get out of it into something that will hopefully produce a little bit of cashflow and then build your wealth with the other three benefits. Tax pay down, appreciation and appreciation, yeah, yeah, do that on the next property, but try to get that fourth cashflow one in there if possible.

David:
I like it. I was talking to my real estate team yesterday about contacting our past clients about selling their house and one of the agents said, I just hate telling anyone to sell a house because I want ’em to keep it as a rental, so I don’t want to go back to our past clients and ask if they want to sell their home. I want ’em to keep it. And I said, well, yeah, if you sell the house and you go buy a motorcycle and an RV and you take a bunch of vacations, that’s dumb. But if you sell a house in an area to buy in an area that’s better. If you sell a house that’s worth a little bit of money to buy a house that’s going to be worth more and make more cashflow and appreciate you just move the equity from a bad place to a better place. Don’t look at it like selling a house looking at like replanting a tree.

Rob:
You’re transferring, there

David:
You go. You’re transferring your wealth into a better pot for that plant to live in. It sounds like the Long Island market, or at least this specific property ain’t working out if a property is not cash flowing and even more so if you can’t find a tenant, get out of dodge. That is not a good scenario. The one Achilles heel for all real estate investing is it depends on having tenants.

Rob:
Yeah, yeah. He said that his property manager’s a little nervous that he’s not going to be able to rent it, I mean, or rent it for the same amount. So if your property manager is feeling that way, well, how much do you like him? Are they experienced? Maybe find a new property manager and confirm that this is true. I would hate for you to sell it without doing a little bit of due diligence, but if it seems correct, then yeah, just get it. Move the, I like that analogy. Move the flower pot, move the flower planting stuff into a bigger pot, David. I get it.

David:
Bobby also mentioned in our notes here that this property is actually furnished and you don’t want to lose all that furniture because the stuff’s freaking expensive. No one knows better than Rob buy. Nice, not thrice, Abba solo. And so you don’t want to waste furniture. You’re probably not going to get a lot for it in a traditional sale. So a couple things we could do with that. Maybe Bobby, before you sell, look, if you could rent this thing out as a medium or a short-term rental, you never know. Is there a strong market out there for a furnished property? And Rob, where would you recommend he go? Price labs, air DNA. What’s your advice?

Rob:
I typically use Air DNA. Just make sure that you are sifting through the bad comps and the good comps. There’s a whole strategy around this, but you just want to find comps that are very comparable to yours, right? Same bed, bath, same square footage, same location ish, same amenities, and that’s how you can get a gauge of how much you could possibly make, but typically air DA is the one that I use.

David:
Or you could talk to a property manager that manages short-term rentals and get a feel from a more experienced host in that realm. But let’s say that that doesn’t work. The next thing I would do is I would go into forums like Facebook forums or online communities in the Long Island area for people that are short-term rental and midterm rental operators, and I would see if anyone there wants to buy furniture, you’re probably going to sell it to them easier and for more money than if you just sell it along with the house. If you end up selling that thing, the last place I would go is Facebook marketplace. I’d advertise some of that furniture for sale, I’d sell it there, but you don’t want to just be like, oh, I’ll give it to the sellers. The sellers are going to throw in a couple grand. Maybe if they even want that furniture, they might actually tell you that you need to get rid of it. They have their own furniture. It’s a very inefficient way to capitalize there.

Rob:
Yep, good point. Honestly, yeah, I mean midterm rental, short-term rentals could be the exit strategy that helps, but a lot more management. And then also just a little word to the wise here, just because there’s short-term rental grosses from a revenue standpoint, a lot more than a long-term rental, it doesn’t mean that it’ll make more money because to run it as a long-term rental might cost you now, let’s say $1,500 a month. Then you have operational expenses with midterm rentals and short-term rentals that could cost you 3,500 or $4,000 a month to run as a business, and you have to make more than that. There’s some complexities there, so just make sure you’re running your numbers and that it’s actually worth it to short-term rent it because you don’t want to just take a look at that gross revenue at face value. You want to make sure it’s still going to be profitable. There’s a fine line there

David:
Though. Alright, there you go. Bobby, thank you for your message, man. Best of luck to you. Love the energy, love that you’re making it happen, and good luck on that triplex out there in St. Petersburg. Alright, we’re going to be back after a quick break and we’re going to get into some advice for protecting yourself from title fraud, so stick around.

David:
All right, welcome back. We’re talking title fraud. This question comes from Brian and he says, I’ve got five rentals across four states, and I own most of them completely outright, so no loan. I’m looking for advice on how to protect myself from title fraud as this is one of my biggest fears. This title theft stuff is coming up a lot, hearing more and more about it. When I read the question, my first thought was, well, if you don’t have a lot of equity, this is something that’s not likely to happen. However, o’ Brian here has got himself a butt load. That’s a technical term. Yeah, it is of equity. So I believe his fears are founded here.

Rob:
Yeah, I got a question. What’s the problem? I didn’t know. Is you owning a house outright open you up to more title fraud?

David:
Yeah, basically if someone’s going to steal title to your home, okay, you got a million dollar home but you owe $950,000 on it, what are they going to do with a million dollar home that only has $50,000 of equity? They’re going to have a hard time selling it to anybody else. It’s not really that valuable to them, and they don’t know how to operate the thing, so nobody steals those houses. What they look for is a $300,000 house that’s been completely paid off because now they could go sell it to somebody else for a hundred thousand dollars. Who thinks that they just got a great deal and the fraudster just made themselves a quick hundred K.

Rob:
This is very educational for me. Run me through a scenario where this might happen. So I have a house, it’s paid off, it’s worth $300,000. Some fraudster can come in and what finagle some documents to make it look like or forge my name and then basically steal my house title from me.

David:
I don’t know the exact process, but what it would involve would be, and that’s I’m not a criminal,

Rob:
You weren’t a wire. You got to tell me if you’re wearing a wire.

David:
That’s funny. Are you a cop? You got to tell me if you’re a cop.

Rob:
Yeah, you got to tell me.

David:
So what you would do is you would forge documents, just like you said, that show you created an LLC and that person owns the property and they are going to be transferring the title from their own name or their entity into yours. You would then take that to a notary, which you could pay. I mean, it’s not like notaries work for the ca a a, I guess you could still buy someone off in the ca. They’re not that hard to buy off. So I’m getting at,

Rob:
I’ve seen pain and gain.

David:
Yeah, there you go. Exactly. If you and I were in that movie, who would be pain and who would be game?

Rob:
I think you would be Dwayne Johnson and I’d be the other guy. Mark Wahlberg. Oh, mark. Oh, I’d be Mark Wahlberg. Hey, say hello to your mother for

David:
Me. Look how happy Rob just got First time you’ve ever been

Rob:
Compared to this is the first time Marco Wahlberg actually is what

David:
Marco

Rob:
All? No,

David:
That means hamburger in Spanish for anyone who’s trying to put the pieces together. Very nice. And we’re back. So you would just go to a notary and you would say, Hey there, I’m buying this house. I need you to notarize these documents. Here’s a little five grand to grease the wheels for you. They would say, oh, I happen to have an ID from Rob Abello here saying that I want to sell my house to David Green, and now I take that to the county assessor’s website and I say, I’ve got documents here showing there’s a grant deed. This property has been transferred from Rob to David and now they record it as belonging to David and there’s nothing you can do. You could go to the tax assessor’s office and you could say, this was stolen from me. I never agreed to it. And they’re going to say, I don’t care if it’s recorded as his, it’s his.

David:
It’s a civil matter. Take it up with the judge and during that period of time, you’ve lost access to the house and then what I can do is I can go sell it to somebody else. Now I can’t sell anybody else this house if it’s got a lien on it for a lot of money because when I go to transfer the title from me to them, the lender’s going to get notified and they’re going to ask me paid off. So if I try to sell them the house at a discount of 900,000 when it’s a million dollar house, but there’s a note on it for 950,000, there’s no money in it for me. So that’s why they target houses that have a lot of equity, particularly

Rob:
That’s been paid off it. Wow, okay. That’s super interesting. I guess I would say can you get title insurance after, I mean title insurance is just

David:
Protects the buyer.

Rob:
Yeah,

David:
That’s the problem is if someone’s fraudulently stealing your properties, you are the seller in that situation. So the title insurance will be protecting the person who’s stealing the properties from you. So that’s like putting a bulletproof vest on the bad guy that’s not helping us here. So for anybody else that’s worried about this checkout episode 8 0 8 where we interviewed Sheila and Theresa who have a company consortia, that’s a blockchain company that’s designed to help with property details and ownership. It was kind of like Carfax for a home. You might be able to protect yourself with some of the offerings they have and then look for these warning signs. This will alert you to the fact somebody might’ve stolen title to your property and you don’t know it. You stop receiving water bills or property tax assessments because if the title changes from you to somebody else, those bills are going to go to that person.

David:
When the county tax assessor’s office has their mailing address listed instead of yours, the utility bills on a vacant property rise suddenly, or you find other people living there, you stop receiving your tenant’s rent payments and learn that they’ve been making the payments to another person and location. That should alert anybody if that happens. But if you’re using a property manager, they might not have understood that you didn’t sell the property. You receive payment books or other information from a lender with whom you haven’t done business. So if you get letters in the mail from a lender and you never did business with them, that’s a sign that something might’ve gone on. Or you find yourself in default on a loan or are notified of foreclosure proceedings through a notice of default. Any of these things like what’s up? This might indicate title fraud. You want to call your county tax assessor’s office immediately and say, Hey, I own this property, can you make sure that it is still in my name?

David:
Now if it’s not in your name, they’re going to have the name of the person who recorded it under their name and now you can start your gumshoe work of hiring a private eye, a detective or doing your own work to figure out who that person is and how they took title. Now the good news for you is because most states require someone to have valid id, in fact, all states that I know of to buy a property, they would’ve had to make up a fake ID and somehow pulled the wool over people’s eyes to not use their own identity. So most of the time when this happens, you could find out who the person is that did it.

Rob:
Yeah, I mean there’s definitely some paper trail and I guess corrective action that could be taken, but it sounds very expensive and I’m really glad we answered. I mean, mostly we talked about this question, but I think it’s important. I bet you there’s a lot of people at home listening right now that were just like, wait a minute, this can happen. And I’m one of them.

David:
Yeah, it actually can happen. It happened to me. It didn’t happen this same way, but it did happen to me and it was a huge, huge, huge problem for me that triggered a domino rally of a bunch of other things that went wrong. So especially if you’re a prominent investor like we are where people know who we are and we can become targets, it’s even more easily to happen and if you own properties that are paid off or have a lot of equity, you’re basically running around with a big target on your back.

Rob:
Yeah, that’s right. Remind me, you mentioned it the other day, what was your mother’s maiden name again?

David:
So at this part of the show, we like to read some comments from previous YouTube posts as well as comments. People left when they left us a review on their podcast app. Our first comment comes from Brady Morgan and he says, David, you said it. Learn the trades. I left the corporate world about five years ago early in my real estate investing journey from the first bird deal that I did, and I learned that construction is the biggest margin on real estate and I needed to know more about it. I started working as a framing carpenter, joined my local planning and zoning board as a volunteer and then became a building inspector for my town. Today I have my own construction company, building rentals and specs, investing in new construction homes become so much easier when you don’t have to pay someone the 20% general contractor fee. Honestly, learning the trades and construction has been more valuable than my MBA degree plus. I enjoy it so much more than sitting in a computer all day in a windowless office crunching data. That is a cool, I love this story. In fact, we need to get Brady Morgan on the podcast and talk to Old Brady about how he pulled this off. I think this is a great strategy for how you can make deals work in a tough environment. What do you think, Rob?

Rob:
Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, doing the whole construction thing, whether you’re doing it yourself, DIY or professionally, I’m always an advocate for trying to build stuff at cost, and if you’re doing that, I think new construction is one of the best ways to build wealth because you’re getting amazing assets at cost to you, I think as long as you’re willing to suffer through the construction process and all that stuff. But super sound, I love doing it. I’m doing more new construction this year. Next comment, this is from dash ZB 0 8 8 8 5. He says, the recast explanation was a little light. Most lenders now will allow you to do it purely because it will typically free up lower interest rate capital that they wouldn’t see and now can relend at a higher rate. Inflation has some benefits I suppose. Basically a recast is tied to a reduction of principle and then the payment is reduced as the remaining balance is amortized over the remaining term. If you as a borrower don’t mind the opportunity cost of not investing the principal reduced amount, assuming it’s a lower rate than the lender slash borrower, it is a win-win scenario. Borrower gets a lower payment at same interest rate to pay less interest over time, and lender will get to reinvest those funds in another borrower at a higher rate. Did you keep up with all that?

David:
It’s a nice summation of the recast dilemma that we were talking about. So yeah, when rates go up, but you have a lower interest rate, lenders are more likely to let you pay them back quicker because they let you borrow money at 3%, you’re paying it back, they can lend it at a higher rate. That also puts them in a position where they are incentivized to now call notes that are due. If you assume a loan from someone else at 3% or 4% and rates go up to eight, nine, 10%. Lenders are like, Hey, if I could get that back from you, I can lend it out at three times the rate that I let somebody borrow it at. It increases the odds that that could happen and it decreases the odds. That could happen, obviously when rates go low, but when rates go low, people refinance. They’re not going to hold on to assume mortgages at 9%. So that is a great point, and if you’re having trouble finding loans and you’re sitting at a high interest rate and you’re just trying to find a way to get more of a return, cashflow wise, hey, putting a hundred thousand dollars or $50,000 towards your principal balance and decreasing it, especially if you’re at an eight, nine, 10% interest rate, is a way to increase your cashflow without buying more real estate.

Rob:
Yeah, I love it. One little note here from island, Derek. He says, recasting your mortgage, they typically require a 30 to 50% equity before they can recast. I don’t know if that’s you. I’ve never looked into it that much, but something to keep in mind, I suppose for some mortgage companies.

David:
Thank you, Rob. Great job there. I’m glad I brought you along. We love you guys. We appreciate your engagement. Please continue to comment and subscribe on YouTube, and if you’re listening to this in a podcast app, take some time to follow the show so you get notified every time seeing Green comes out. Alright, we’re going to take a quick break and then after that we’re going to get into advice for investing in Hawaii if it’s still possible and how to do it.

David:
Welcome back. We’re going to close out today’s show with one final question. This comes from G Petit in Florida. David, what’s your opinion on investing in Hawaii? Where do you invest there and what strategies work on what islands? You have mentioned frequently having different property types there, but is it worthwhile market over the long term? Many properties that I see are scummy leaseholds condos that don’t seem to appreciate due to their vast quantities and overpriced shacks. Is the Hawaiian dream dead and what strategies actually work on the island from your experience? Is it worth it to burn cash on a house hack just to live in the area and get high appreciation? Are condos worthwhile with their fees and lack of control or appreciation? And can Airbnbs actually make money past all the regulation? Rob, I’m going to let you start with this one.

Rob:
Well, this is very much a like, Hey, do you have five minutes to chat? And then it’s like 80 questions and it turns into an hour. There are a lot of questions to unpack here. So what is your opinion on investing in Hawaii? To be honest, I don’t know if maybe I’m just, I don’t know. I think too much about it, but I haven’t really put a lot of thought into it because I hear the different backlash and people not being super happy with, I don’t know, real estate being snatched up. I got to be careful about how I word that. I know you own real estate there, but I like the idea, but I don’t know. I just don’t really, I do think about it a little bit, I guess I think about that. I’m like, well, I don’t really ever want, it’s already hard enough to be a real estate investor in the United States where everyone on TikTok hates you, but if I were to talk about how I invested in Hawaii, I don’t even want to know what those TikTok comments would say. So I guess I haven’t really thought about it. I could have said that.

David:
Yeah. Thank you for answering a true politician with a lot of words and very little substance in anything.

Rob:
I’m scared. Okay, I’m scared.

David:
All right, so I own properties in Maui. They are short-term rentals. I’m trying to get to all the questions that was asked of me. Here they are in a form of an HOA in Hawaii. I guess they would be technically classified as condos. They’re not leaseholds. So these scummy leaseholds that G petit is describing is, how would I describe this? Basically, instead of owning the land, you own the building that’s on the land and you are leasing the land from the owner, which is usually a Hawaiian native. So they didn’t want to sell all their land, so people coming in that didn’t live there. So they said, look, I’m not going to sell the land, but I’ll let you lease it from me for a hundred years, and at the end of that a hundred year term or whatever it is, we’ll have to renegotiate another lease on this land.

David:
Otherwise, I get to keep all the improvements that you made on the property, which can obviously be scary if you go build yourself a nice waterfront villa and the lease holder says, Hey, I don’t want to renew the lease, or Here’s my real expensive lease terms, they’d be able to take your property. The other way of owning property is called fee simple, which means that you own it yourself, which is how most of us are used to owning property as far as should somebody do it or not, should they buy in Hawaii. I’m going to just relate this to every appreciation market in the golden era of real estate where we had low rates, lots of inflation, lots of opportunities to buy real estate before it became easy to do because software was created and podcasts were created and strategies were shared, you could get cashflow and appreciation in the same market.

David:
It’s getting to the point where I’m starting to see in my mind a delineation between these two strategies. You’ve got cashflow markets, which tend to be low priced homes, closer to 1% rule where you can get cashflow, you’re probably not going to get a lot of appreciation, and then you’ve got appreciation markets that are almost the opposite. You’re going to get appreciation, but you’re probably not going to cashflow in order to invest in these appreciation markets without losing money every month. You have to put a very sizable down payment down. So what’s starting to happen is that if you want to get into the appreciation markets where you will make more money longterm, you have to have more money to play. So what happens is instead of buying a million dollar place and putting $200,000 down, you buy a million dollar place and you put $500,000 down and then that million dollar place becomes worth 1.2.

David:
So you made $200,000 on your $500,000 investment, which is a 40% return on your money, but it did not come as a cash on cash return. It came as a cash on equity return. Let’s call it that. Like an ROI basically, right? Yes. Oh yeah. ROE. Yeah, return on investment has been synonymous with cash on cash return, but it really shouldn’t be. No, there’s different ways. Definitely not that you get an investment. That’s kind of the topic of the book that I’m writing. So if you don’t have a really big down payment, you really shouldn’t be investing in a market like Hawaii or Malibu or Miami, some of these places that are going to be more expensive because you’re not going to cashflow, and if you’re not in a financially strong position through a lot of money or through the ability to weather a lot of not cashflow, you shouldn’t be playing there.

David:
You’re going to have to go to these cashflow markets that aren’t going to get appreciation and just go slower. You’re going to slowly build equity. You’re going to slowly 10 31 into something better. You’re going to learn the principles of real estate investing. You’re going to take a couple years to get it down, and then maybe you 10 31 into a market like Hawaii. And I guess that’s the way that I’m starting to notice investors have two different routes that they can take. Well, we never had to have this conversation before. It was, do I want a lot of cashflow in a cheaper market or a little bit of cashflow in an appreciation market? And I think that the scales have kind of tipped away from that. What do you think?

Rob:
Yeah, interest rates have made it harder to have made everything a little bit tougher. I want to impact something you said, which is the cash on cash versus ROI, because some people might be like, whoa, what? I totally get this cash on cash, you’re right, has been synonymous with that. So basically cash on cash is how hard your money works for you in one year time. So if you invest a hundred thousand dollars into a property and the profit after all of your expenses is $15,000, you would divide that 15,000 by the a hundred thousand dollars investment and that would be a 15% cash on cash return. That is the golden metric in a lot of different real estate investments for sure in Airbnb two, whereas you get into the ROI side of things, and I think ROI is a breakdown of cash on cash. The tax benefits that you got from deductions appreciation. When you factor all four of those in, that’s what gets you your IRR or your rate of return,

David:
Which is another metric for measuring return on investment.

Rob:
Are you agreed with that definition too? That’s

David:
What literally the next book that I’m writing is about is ROI should not be synonymous with cash on cash return. They’re not the same thing. There’s 10 ways you make money in real estate, and I haven’t divided into the four categories. You said Rob, cashflow, appreciation, tax savings, which is depreciation. That’s why you keep getting mixed up as well as loan pay down. So you can make money in real estate in all of these ways, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all equally good for everybody. If you’re someone who’s got a $3 million net worth, you can go invest in Hawaii and delay gratification and make your money through equity, which is energy stored in the property. But if you’re someone who’s living paycheck to paycheck, you don’t really have that luxury. You’re going to have to go into somewhere that’s lower risk where you actually get cashflow every single month and you’re going to make your money through energy you put in the bank, which would be the cash, and we’ve never needed in the past.

David:
To differentiate between these two things, what we always said was invest for cashflow and hopefully appreciation will happen. So the question was, is the Hawaiian dream dead? It probably is not dead, but it is out of reach for the new investor who’s like, I want to buy my first house. I want to do it in Maui. No, you don’t. That’s like, I’m going to start going back to the gym and get in shape. I should go to CrossFit. Absolutely not. You will die. Don’t do that. Start taking a walk. Measure your steps, go to a gym, work out at a pace that you can handle and earn the way to get into CrossFit. I think investors should look at it the same way with these appreciation markets.

Rob:
Final little thing on the question he ended with, which is, can Airbnbs actually make money past all the regulation? And what locations do you invest in? I do want to say one little thing, going back to my non-answer earlier about genuinely considering what the Hawaiian population, their feedback about investors coming in and snapping up property. There is a housing shortage in Hawaii and typically in cities like la, New York, San Francisco, and then places like Hawaii where there are such extreme housing shortages, the regulations typically follow suit. And so for that reason, I’m also uninterested in investing in Airbnbs out in Hawaii because I don’t know if I can trust that regulation will keep me as an Airbnb investor, keep my interest at play. I think they’re not going to watch out for us, which is, I don’t have an issue necessarily with that, but that

David:
Is my, I mean, that happened to me in Maui. I bought properties, luckily I bought it in a resort zone. A lot of people were not buying in resort zones and they all had the hammer come down on them. Our producer here put Ordinance 22 7, which is Pax in October of 2022, basically spelled out that Hawaiians can find people for operating short-term rentals if it’s not in a resort zone. And I believe it’s like $10,000 a day. And they actually have department officials that are proactively go look for these. They send someone in a car, they take pictures of your guests checking and out with their suitcases, they hit you with a 10,000 fine. So they’re not joking around and it’s not just Hawaii. I’m seeing this everywhere. And they only do it when people apply for a short-term rental permit. So it is not like it’s a bad strategy, but you have more due diligence going into this than people ever had before. Alright, everybody, we hope you enjoyed today’s show, Rob and I sure did. So if you like this stuff, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. Rob, anything you want to say before we go?

Rob:
No, I liked all of these. Were all thinkers. Usually we have a couple softballs, but I feel like we really had to talk through every one of these questions.

David:
Absolutely. This was a tough show. Thanks for being here with me to take some of the pressure off. Rob, if you want to know more about Rob or I, our info is in the show note, so go check that out and keep an eye out for the next episode of Seeing Green. This is David Green for Rob Aristotle. Aboso signing off.

Rob:
What’s the connection on that one? You’re a

David:
Thinker.

Rob:
Oh, I like it. Thank you. That’s the nice thing you’ve ever said about me.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=gt62DCwQ1FM123

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • Title fraud explained and how silent thieves can steal your real estate portfolio without you even knowing it
  • Whether to keep, sell, or 1031 exchange a rental property that won’t cash flow 
  • The real value of a low interest rate and why many investors get this wrong
  • Warning signs that your properties are being stolen out from under you
  • Investing in expensive markets and why we would/wouldn’t invest in states like Hawaii
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2024 Deals We’re Doing with High Cash Flow and Rock-Bottom Rates (4.75%!)

3 Ways We Find Real Estate Deals Even During the Harshest Housing Markets

It seems like everyone is wondering how to find real estate deals in today’s supply-constrained market. With housing inventory still hovering around historical lows, finding a cash-flowing, appreciating rental property isn’t as easy as before. But maybe that’s just because most people don’t know where to look for these properties. In reality, there are steals and deals all around us, and if our hosts can take down home-run real estate deals in this housing market, what’s stopping you from doing it, too?

So today, David Greene and Dave Meyer are giving you three ways to find your next real estate deal using both on AND off-market investing tactics. The majority of Americans ignore these tactics, and only serious or savvy investors will follow through on them. Once you know where to find these deals, the deal flow doesn’t stop. If you can master any of these three tactics, you’ll have a source of profitable investment properties streaming to you for years to come.

First, we’ll show you how to find off-market deals and a few strategies you can use to locate and engage with motivated sellers. Next, we’re sharing the exact networking play to get real estate deals sent straight to you. And if you think on-market (MLS) deals are dead, you couldn’t be more wrong. David shares how he picked up an on-market luxury vacation rental for a surprisingly low price, all because he knew where to look!

Looking for cash-flowing short and medium-term rental properties in the best investing markets in America? Visit Rent to Retirement or text “REI” to 33777!

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 9 44. What’s going on everyone? This is David Green, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast, joined by the other Dave, creating a double D. Dave Meyer. How are you today?

Dave:
I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on here today, and I’m excited about this show because we’re in a current market cycle that has low housing supply, but there’s obviously a ton of demand out there for homes which keeps home prices up, and we’re just not seeing a lot of housing for people to go out there and buy Deals are just harder to come by right

David:
Now. That is exactly right. Real estate is more popular than ever and in today’s show we are going to be talking about what you can do to find deals. Today. We’re going to cover several ways to do this, including both on and off market strategies, using your time and energy wisely, leveraging the power of relationships and most importantly, what to look for that other investors are missing. So very practical things that you would think others would know but they don’t. So make sure you listen all the way to the end to get the edge on your competition.

Dave:
I love it. Let’s get into it.

David:
In today’s show, we’re going to be discussing several different investing tactics and strategies, but they fall into three main buckets, how to allocate more time and energy to finding deals, how to create relationships and get more access to deals, and how to optimize your current strategy to find deals on the market. So let’s start with the first one.

Dave:
Alright, so the first bucket is putting more time and energy into finding properties at a deeper discount. So David, do you have any thoughts on ways to do that?

David:
Well, it does take a lot of time and energy to find these deals and that’s why we’re starting there. It’s funny, I often hear people at real estate meetups or some places say, where do I go to find off market deals? Which is funny to me.

Dave:
If you could just find them, they’d be odd market deals.

David:
It’s a market. It’s exactly right. It’s so funny. It’s like where’s the dispensary where I can go catch the fish that they’ve already caught, but I want to catch wild fish, right? You’re

Dave:
Like, that’s so true. I’ve never thought about that. Yeah, by definition there’s no place to

David:
Go. That’s exactly right. But there are ways to find them. You’re just going to be hunting. So we’re going to be talking about hunting strategies and the best one to start with is what we call driving for dollars. And this is basically driving around a neighborhood and looking for properties that look like they’re showing some kinds of physical distress that would lead one to believe that the seller is more likely to be in a financial bind or willing to sell the property at a bigger discount.

Dave:
Driver of dollars is a good strategy. I don’t know if the name is still the most applicable because do people who still actually do driving because you can drive, but there are other ways to sort of do this deep analysis too. So are you sort of talking about just any sort of direct marketing to sellers? Well,

David:
I think that there’s some ways that people send letters in the mail. That’s certainly true, but a lot of the people who own these properties either aren’t checking their mail, they’re getting bombarded with this stuff all the time. The idea is you’re trying to get to them through a means that they’re not used to being contacted. So one way is people will drive around, they’ll see a property that looks like the yard hasn’t been mowed, there’s a lot of newspapers stacking up in the yard, maybe there’s boarded up windows. And then once you find the address, you skip tracing systems to go say, I’m going to call this person directly and say, Hey, I drove by your house. That’s a little bit different than I’m just sending a whole bunch of letters to the same mailbox that everybody else is sending letters to

Dave:
As the recipient of many of those letters. I don’t like getting them and I ignore them, but I might be a little bit more skeptical of them because I’m in this industry and know who’s sending them to me. And so many times when I used to live in Denver, I would actually know the individuals who would send me those things. I was like, dude, you’re not buying my house for me. But yeah, so I mean it is a lot of work, but it can have a really good payoff. Right. Have you ever done this yourself, David?

David:
I never did driving for dollars. Almost everything that I’ve ever bought has come from the MLS. I bought a handful from wholesalers back in the day or occasionally word of mouth. I never did the direct mail system, but that’s also because I never really had the bandwidth to work that system. I’ve always had several different businesses and companies and so most of my energy has been spent towards helping people on the service side of real estate, selling homes, getting mortgages, getting insurance, things like that. So I haven’t done it, but I like what you said, Dave, there’s so many people that are doing this. You really have to do something to stand out from the competition. And the minute that we say do this to stand out from the competition, everyone hears it. The competition does it. Now you’re just like everybody else that’s doing it.
And that’s one of the reasons that I think it makes more sense to be driving for dollars as opposed to sending direct mail. Because if you can say, Hey, I just drove by your house, I noticed fill in the blank, the fence was falling over, your gutters are overwhelmed. I’m just curious. Tell me, have you seen the property in a while? Do you want to get rid of the thing? It gives you a little bit more of a human connection and the people who own these properties, I assume are getting bombarded with different text messages, automated systems, letters that are coming in because it’s easier for people to just send those than it is to contact someone. So you’re kind of coming in the back door instead of the front door where they’re used to seeing people come.

Dave:
That’s true. I think if you’re going to just do it a traditional way, you probably have to be in a pretty small market where there aren’t a lot of sophisticated investors. But where I lived in Denver, there are tons of house flippers, there are tons of investors. I’m sure it’s the same for you David in California. That’s a mature market so that maybe if you’re in a small town, these people aren’t being marketed to and so you could do postcards or whatever like that. But I think David’s right that you need to actually do this, really have sort of apply a personal touch if you’re going to do it. And then the other thing, David, you mentioned that I want to reiterate is you mentioned that you didn’t have time to work systems, and that’s really what it comes down to. This isn’t like a, I pick five properties and I’m going to contact five people. It’s a volume play. You have to do this dozens of times, hundreds of times before you maybe even get someone to talk to you. Then you have to convince them. You have to see if they are willing to accept a reasonable price. And so it really is building out systems to create a marketing funnel. And if you can do that, at least from what I hear from friends who do this, it can be extremely lucrative and worthwhile. But I do think it does take some time to set up and get good at those processes.

David:
A hundred percent. You also are going to need to put some money into it. So the people that I know that do direct mail typically spend between five and $30,000 a month sending these letters. Really? Yeah, that’s a lot. And then you got to pay somebody to answer the phone when the calls come in and that person has to be by their phone all the time. You also have to assume that you’re not the only person getting that call. You’re competing with the other people that are doing this. So this is no longer something that you do casually if you’re going to get into the space. You have to understand you are competing for an asset that a lot of other investors want, which means you have to be good at what you’re doing and you have to be better than them to make it happen.
And if they’ve been in the game longer than you have, they’ve got a headstart on you. Now that makes it more like a business, and we’ve been saying for years that being a real estate investor is a form of being a business owner, so this doesn’t need to scare people, but we are trying to set the expectation that this isn’t something you just walk out there, throw your pole in the water, get a bite and rail in a big juicy deal with $50,000 of equity. There’s also the method of calling lists of potentially distressed property owners as opposed to driving for dollars. People that have maybe like they never paid their property taxes or they’ve been issued a notice of default by their lender and they’re heading into pre foreclosure. People do this because it also gets you a better opportunity to get in touch with somebody who is likely to be in some kind of personal distress. We were talking about property distress when it comes to driving for dollars and now we’re talking about personal distress. Somebody could just be in tough financial times and be willing to sell that house because they’re going to lose it to some form of foreclosure Anyways.

Dave:
Yeah, I don’t have any experience with that personally, but I know that people do that. And yeah, these are effort ways. Again, this category, this bucket that we were talking about of the three main buckets for deal finding is ways that you can contribute time and energy into finding deals. So if what we’re describing sounds like it is going to be time consuming, it’s because it’s, and that’s the whole point. If you have time to contribute and you want to really set up a system to scale a large business, these are good options. But David, can I actually tell you a story? It just proves me to be a complete hypocrite.

David:
I was hoping that you would. Nobody tells stories quite like you Dave. Can I crack out the s’mores?

Dave:
Yes. Well, I just went on a rant about how this is a systems thing and you have to do this a lot to be successful. I have done exactly one drive for dollar effort in my entire life and I got it. I’m one for one, I’m driving for dollars and then I just quit. I decided I was never going to do it ever again. Well,

David:
I mean it. Tell us the story of how you landed the thing.

Dave:
Well, I was biking around. I found this deal that I really wanted to buy and I didn’t even know what skip tracing was. This was before I worked at Pickpockets and knew exactly what I should be doing and I just went into the depths of public record website hell and found some guy’s phone number and called him up. It was actually my third day at BiggerPockets. I went out in the hallway, I remember and called this guy and just made him an offer and he accepted it. I bought the deal, I still own it. And that was the one and only time I’ve ever tried to do this. So it is possible, but don’t take that story as evidence that you could just do this one and done.

David:
Alright, so we’ve got some steps to take if you’ve got time and energy to put into finding deals. And if you don’t have that kind of time and energy or luck like Dave Meyer, we’ve got a few other strategies for you right after this break. So stick around.

Dave:
Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. We’re here talking about the best ways to find profitable deals even in a constraint market. Let’s jump back in.

David:
Alright, moving into the next bucket of the three are relationships. Now this is going to be something I prefer much more than the business approach of sending letters or driving for dollars and it’s good old fashioned belly to belly face-to-face conversation. So Dave, I’m going to let you start this off. What are some of your favorite ways for investors to build relationships with people who may have deals?

Dave:
Well, the obvious one is to work with wholesalers, which I’m going to ask you about because I’ve actually never bought a deal from a wholesaler, but I think that one of the best ways to do it is just meeting other investors, and this is probably maybe the most underrated way of finding deals is a lot of people I think when they first start assume that investors are all competitive with one another and that they’re all going to be fighting after the same deals. But I think in reality, different investors have different buy boxes. They have different types of deals they’re looking for. They have different price points, different neighborhoods that they’re targeting, and a lot of times if you’re in the industry, you’ll be able to find other investors who maybe come across deals that are better for you than they are for them, and you could sort of create these reciprocal relationships where you are looking out for each other because you’re not looking for the same types of deals and you can actually help one another.

David:
Yep. Now you can do this with wholesalers. A lot of times wholesalers will take a deal and they’ll just throw it into one big group. I don’t think that’s the best strategy. It could be if you have a really good group of people, and I’ve heard wholesalers talk about this before is like first come first serve, I dangle this thing out there, everybody looks at it and whoever wants it first gets it. It sounds good, but I’ve seen the same strategy with listing agents in real estate sales and I don’t think it works. It’s much better to say, look, here’s the number I’m listed at. If you get me this number, I think my clients will take it because people will pay more for certainty. In fact, this just crossed my desk yesterday, someone brought me a portfolio of 22 properties and there was a price on it and I talked to the person and I said, Hey, I understand you’re selling these properties for this price.
And they’re like, well, that’s the reserve price, but we’re going to have an auction. And I was like, okay, nevermind. He’s like, no, no, no. Write an offer. It’s like I’m not going to do due diligence on a 22 house portfolio just to find out that somebody was going to pay $10,000 more than I would. And I think that’s how most people look at it, which is why I advise people, if you’re going to do this, build relationships as a wholesaler with your serious buyers first. And if you are the person looking to buy the deals, be the serious buyer and build the relationship with the wholesaler directly. Don’t just think like, Hey, I’m going to get into these groups or wholesalers dangle their deals and overpay or spend all my time analyzing deals that never work out. That’s when people put things in contract and back out and don’t close and you get the big mess that we often see with the real estate investing community.

Dave:
Alright, well you just covered everything here, David, for wholesaling. Thank you because I’m not equipped to answer that one. What about your personal life? Is there any way that you recommend to people that they just work with people not necessarily even in real estate to find deals?

David:
Yeah, this is even better than the wholesalers. I mean, your ideal person is a normal human in your life that doesn’t know what BiggerPockets is, doesn’t know what real estate investing is, has never heard of a cash on cash return or a phrase like Burr or house hack. You want to find people that think that this house is a burden, not an asset that other people want. So I recommend that people go to their aunts, their uncles, their cousins, their friends, the person who owns the car dealership, any form of influential person in your town, the person running your PTA, the one coaching the T-ball team and just be like, Hey, I buy people’s houses. If you come across someone with an ugly house, a person that needs a quick sale, a person that doesn’t like realtors, give me a call. I’ll buy the house without any kind of hassle, any kind of strings in any condition, and you plant these little seeds in everybody’s mind and you do this continually and the hopes are you planted that seed around the same time that they heard about a death in the family, a divorce, a person that got a promotion, someone that’s going to be moving, and you go, Hey, my buddy Dave over there, he buys houses.
You should give him a call. He could buy it from you without having to go through what people call the hassle of putting it on the market. Now I say that a little bit tongue in cheek because so many people think that they’re saving money by not paying a realtor and then they don’t put their house on the market, which means nobody sees it and they get way less money by trying to save in commissions. But if that’s how someone’s thinking, you can take advantage of that as a real estate investor buying it before it hits the market where everybody else sees it. I

Dave:
Think that’s such a good point about just laying those seeds because it’s similar to people asking where you find off market deals. I’m sure you’ve heard this too, David, but sometimes people are like, where do you find a pocket listing? Well, it’s the same thing. You can’t go anywhere to find a pocket listing the way you get a pocket listing, and if you’ve never heard that, a pocket listing is basically kind of what David’s talking about. It’s like a listing that’s not yet on the MLS, but the person is sort of decided that they want to sell it, but they might shop it around to a few investors or a few friends before they put it on the market. And so the way you find that is there’s no central place for it, but you just have to be known as a good investor person who’s going to treat you with respect and go out and buy it in reasonable condition and do everything the right way, and that’s how you get pocket listings. But these things take time. These are seeds that you have to plant and you have to genuinely just be a part of the community of real estate investors. You can’t really fake it, at least in my experience.

David:
That’s exactly right, and you can’t be too shy. I don’t know. Another way to say it. What we tell real estate agents is you can’t be a secret agent. Everyone has to know you’re a real estate agent. If you want to grow a business, same thing as an investor. You got to work it into every conversation you have, somewhat fluently, somewhat comfortably that you buy houses. You don’t want to dominate the conversation talking about that, but you can’t be afraid to say it because you got to consider yourself Johnny Appleseed. You walk around throwing these seeds into the minds of everybody that you know so that you are the first person that they think of when it comes time to selling a house.

Dave:
Okay, we have to take one more quick break, but when we come back we’ll talk about our personal favorite approach on market deals. They are still possible and we’ll tell you how we find them right after this. Welcome back investors. Let’s pick up where we left off.

David:
Last but not least. In fact, this is my favorite. We have on market deals. This is where I’ve bought over 95% of my own portfolio. Dave, I believe you’re an on market guy. Totally. What do you like about on the market? Not the podcast, but finding the properties?

Dave:
I like it because easy can I say that it doesn’t take as much work as this, but I would honestly, I like the above strategies, but I like on market deals because it allows me to honestly analyze a lot of deals to filter down to just the best ones. I am in the habit of looking at 10 deals a week and just always looking at them and occasionally not all deals on the MLS are going to be good. That is very obvious, especially nowadays, but it does sort of allow you to practice and really get a good sense of the market if you’re always looking at on market deals and that way when a good one does come up that’s in your buy box, you’ll be really ready to pounce on it. So I like that. The second part I really like about is there’s just more information and data about it.
A lot of times when you look at a pocket listing or an off market deal, they’ll have really bad financials or there’ll be no pictures of the property or it’ll be really hard to get information from the seller and it just makes doing diligence and underwriting a lot more difficult. And on, on-market deals, usually the person has spent some time thinking about how they want to present the property and make it appealing to people. And so there’s just more information that you can use. And so yeah, I just think it’s just easy and abundant and it’s probably a very underrated way. Even in today’s market of finding deals,

David:
You’ve also got more protections. It’s regulated. That’s

Dave:
So true.

David:
It’s insanely regulated. I mean, when you get into real estate sales and everyone thinks I’m going to be a real estate agent and save on commissions, most of them lose money because how much money they have to spend to hold these licenses and then they don’t sell a lot of houses. So I bought a house from a wholesaler one time that was advertised as having 1800 square feet. I ran my numbers on it, I bought it at about 70% of the A RVI found out after I closed, it was only 1300 square feet. Well, I bought it cash. There was no appraisal that was done. Nobody ended up measuring the property. I didn’t go walk the property. I was buying it out of state. And if I had bought that on the market, that would’ve been a huge, huge problem for the seller that sold it to me.
They would never have been able to advertise it as more square footage than it was, but because I bought it from a wholesaler, they can literally put whatever they want on that flyer and it’s all buyer beware. Do your own due diligence. So I learned the hard way on that deal. This was years ago that you cannot trust anything that’s being said now. You should always verify everything you’re being told, but when it’s coming through a brokerage that has legal responsibilities, there is a lot of recourse that I would’ve had. And because of that, there’s so many steps that these properties go through before they’re advertised that you are much more protected. That’s one reason that you should buy on the market. Another one that we didn’t talk about earlier, oftentimes, and this is a funny thing, that nobody that sells off the market courses is going to tell you the effort and energy that you spend finding those off market deals ends up costing you more money than what you made in equity when you bought it, if you had just gone to work and made money and then bought deals from the MLS.

Dave:
That’s so true. Yeah,

David:
It would’ve been net positive. I’ve heard people say, I made $60,000 on this deal, and I’m like, what’d you do? And they spent $20,000 and nine months of time to get it. I’m like, that’s not even a very high paying job. Yeah.

Dave:
It’s like you just made $4 an out.

David:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. You just don’t hear that in the Instagram post or the TikTok post or the person bragging about this great deal that causes the fomo that makes everyone listening to the podcast say, ah, I’m doing something wrong. Where do I find my off the market deal? And it puts us back into that. There is no place to find it. So if you buy your deals on the market, don’t feel bad. It actually can be financially advantageous if you’re not spending a ton of time and money and energy to do so. Now, I will say this, I don’t buy turnkey properties on the market. I’m always looking for a value add play or some problem, and that typically is reflected by having a higher days on market number for that particular property than the average for the area. So houses that have tenants stuck in them, houses that have construction problems, holes in the roof.
One of my favorite things to look for is a house that won’t qualify for a conventional loan. So if it’s missing flooring, if it’s missing appliances, if it does have a leaky roof, different things can automatically make a property not eligible for conventional financing, which eliminates 95% of the people that are looking on the market. Well, they don’t advertise that. What you just see is it’s gone in and out of contract a few times and in different books that I’ve written for BiggerPockets, I’ve talked about, I target the phrase back on the market and I target high days on market. Those are both indications that there’s a problem here, but I didn’t have to spend $30,000 in marketing to find the problem to then go negotiate it. I just had to look for the house that’s sitting on the market longer ask why. Another thing that I’ll look for is square footage that has not been converted but could easily be converted. I look for sun rooms, California rooms, basements that haven’t been converted, really big detached garages or even attached garages that I can make a part of the house. I don’t want to build a structure from nothing that takes a lot of money, but if I already have structure that is not included in the square footage of the house, I find an easy value add opportunity sitting right there on the market for me.

Dave:
That’s such a good point. Yeah, I think that targeting specific things on the MLS are really going to help you. And to your point, if you’re looking for a turnkey property, which just so everyone knows is like a property that is already been stabilized, it’s in its highest and best use. Basically the people who put that property in its highest and best use, they know what they got. They’re not selling at a discount. They didn’t fix up the house and make it nice only to sell it under its maximum value. The job of an investor is really to go out and look for unseen opportunities, as David said. So I think that you nailed it right on the head. One I actually was looking at, I didn’t actually wind up offering on it, but one thing I just learned about the other day is that I found a property that had two structures on one lot, and that means it does not qualify for conventional financing. And if you can buy it for cash, which I was considering doing, you can actually do it. But I got a little worried about trying to resell it if no one could qualify because

David:
That’s

Dave:
Smart. Even if I fixed it up, I would have a limited pool of buyers, so I got scared.

David:
Well, the only way to make those ones work is you have to find out why it’s not. Qualifying is probably a zoning issue. So if you could buy a cash, you could get it at a discount, not other competition. It’s a form of distress. Then if you can fix the zoning issue, you split it into two different parcels. You get the city to say, we’ll rezone it as a duplex or two units on one lot. Now the next buyer can get conventional financing. But what you’re describing is literally something that I’ll target. Like the big property that Rob and I bought in Scottsdale, we got that thing 6,500 square feet for less than the cost of the land. It was on, it’s on five acres. We bought the whole property beautiful for less than the cost of the land because nobody could qualify for financing to get it.
When a house is on five acres or more, the lenders don’t like to lend on it because they have these, they call them overlays where they know if we have to foreclose on this property, we don’t know that the value is in the property or in the land, so we’re just not going to lend on it at all. I’ve never heard of that. Now, if you actually look at the house, you’re like, obviously the value is in the property, but the lenders that are lending the money don’t look at the house. They’ve got a manager that oversees an employee that oversees a person, and so they don’t trust that any of those people are going to make a good judgment call. So they just make these rules where they’re like five acres or more. We don’t lend, and that’s what they’re worried about is someone goes and buys 20 acres with a little stick cabin on it somewhere and then they have to foreclose and they can’t find a buyer.
But how do you think we found that house high days on market, gorgeous property, amazing thing sitting there. For a long time it had been in escrow twice and had fallen out and it was because of the financing. So because I have a mortgage company, we were able to work around that and I was able to make it happen. Then if we ever go to sell it, I’ll just use my mortgage company to find the lender that will do it. If the buyer’s financing falls through, I’ll just say, well, we’ll have our company finance it for you. These are all the strategies that you need in today’s market. You just got to get out of that attitude of, I’m just going to go to Zillow, find a house I like. It’s going to have a great cash on cash return. I’m going to buy it for 70% of what it’s worth. I’m just going to walk right into a bunch of money and I’m going to take my space amongst the real estate investing elite at my local meetup and sit in my ivory tower of cashflow.

Speaker 3:
Well said.

David:
So there you go folks. Three buckets that you can start working on today to find deals. The first one is driving for dollars, sending letters. These are the traditional off-market strategies that people use. The next is relationships. One of my favorites. You can go out there and find people that aren’t real estate owners themselves, but know people that do own real estate and say, come to me before you call a real estate agent. And the tried and true on the market strategies. If you know what to look for instead of finding a deal, you make a deal. You can still buy deals in today’s market. Anything you want to add there, Dave? No.

Dave:
You just put a very nice little bow on

David:
It. Alright. If you like stuff like this, you can find more Dave Meyer on the Market BiggerPockets podcast. You can also get our information in the show notes if you’d like to follow us on social media, and please do, because I don’t have any friends, so I need some new ones. And as always, if you like this, check out another BiggerPockets podcast episode where you can learn more about how to build will through real estate investing without all the hype. Also, if you haven’t already done so, make sure that you subscribe to the show wherever you’re listening to your podcast. This is David Green for Dave, the Lance Armstrong of real Estate, biking for dollars. Meyer signing off.

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • The three “buckets” for finding your first or next real estate deal in 2024
  • Off-market real estate” explained and why most people get it wrong
  • How Dave was able to find off-market deals just by…riding his bike?
  • The people you MUST connect with if you want real estate deals sent to you consistently
  • The overlooked on-market properties that ANY investor can find with huge price-cut potential
  • And So Much More!

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BiggerNews: Can’t Qualify for Another Mortgage? Try THESE Investor Loans w/Jeff Welgan

BiggerNews: Can’t Qualify for Another Mortgage? Try THESE Investor Loans w/Jeff Welgan

Want to scale your real estate portfolio faster? These investment property loans can help. Most real estate investors get stuck early on in their journey. They buy some properties and build up some comfortable cash flow, but then…they can’t qualify for another loan. They’ve either reached the maximum limit on conventional mortgages OR don’t have enough income to qualify for bigger and better investments. So what do they do? Give up? Settle with a small rental portfolio? No, they use THESE investment property loans instead.

Jeff Welgan, our investor-friendly lender expert, is back to show us what we’ve been missing. From DSCR (debt service coverage ratio) loans that help you scale to more doors, to no-income-necessary investor loans that don’t look at your income, to business bank statement loans that’ll let you buy homes based on your business’s cash flow, these mortgages can help anyone in any position, purchase real estate faster.

If your DTI (debt-to-income) ratio is too high and you’re struggling to qualify for another mortgage, this is THE episode for you. We’ll discuss using your property’s rent to qualify for more, loans that get around DTI requirements, using your business to fund your deals, and the mortgages you should look into FIRST before you move on to more complex loan products. Stick around if you’re ready to scale faster!

Thank you to our sponsor, Rent App: the free and easy way to collect rent. 

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Dave:
Have you locked down your first deal or maybe two deals and your lender has told you that your debt to income ratio is now maxed out? Has this stopped you from taking down your next property? Well, today on the show we are going to discuss conventional and non-conventional ways that will help you scale your portfolio. Hey investors. My name is Dave Meyer and today we have a bigger news episode for you. We’re bringing back a lender we had on the show last week, Jeff Welgan, and last week, if you didn’t listen yet, he discussed first time home buyer programs that can help you get to that first deal if that’s where you are in your investor journey. But today we’re gonna be talking about how investors who have already locked down one, two, or maybe three properties and are wondering how they can get financing to build their portfolio further.
And this is a really common issue for investors. You get your first few deals and then no one really wants to lend to you anymore. And it’s one of the reasons why I think that getting from two or three deals to five or 10 deals, that part that like middle part of scaling, is really one of the hardest parts of building your portfolio. So that’s why we’re bringing on Jeff to help you navigate some of the strategic decisions, some of the tactical things that you could do to make yourself more lendable and make financing easier as you look for your next property. Before we get into the show, our bigger news episode today is brought to you by Rent app, the free and easy way to collect rent. Learn more at rent.app/landlord. Alright, let’s bring on Jeff. Jeff, welcome. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for being here again.

Jeff:
Yeah, thanks for having me back, Dave.

Dave:
Jeff, to start off, can you explain to us what debt to income ratio is?

Jeff:
Yeah, DTI basically to summarize it, it means, you know, the acronym, like you said, stands for debt to income ratio. It just means what is your buying power? And so when we look at it from a lending standpoint, we’re looking at your total income. And so if you’re a W2 wage earner, we can go off of your gross income, meaning before taxes if you’re self-employed, we have to go off of the net income, so after taxes. So it’s a little different the way the government requires us to do the income calculation. And then we look at what is reported on credit. So your total debt load, we’re not looking at, you know, cell phone bills, you know, water bills, utilities, stuff like that. But we are looking at minimum payments on your credit report. We’re not concerned with what the balances are. We’re just factoring in the total minimum payments that are reported on your credit report for all of your debts, including mortgages, car payments, student loans, credit cards, personal loans. And then we do, you know, a calculation compared to the income calculation that we’re required to use. And that’s how we come up with that ratio.

Dave:
All right, thanks for that helpful explanation Jeff. And just to reiterate there basically DTI is a comparison of how much money you make to how much debt you are trying to take out to finance your, Jeff, can you just tell us why this is important to investors and why this ratio sometimes maybe is a hurdle for people as they are trying to scale?

Jeff:
Yeah. ’cause there’s a lot of misinformation out there surrounding the, the debt to income ratio. And it really comes down to trying to crack that code as a real estate investor to scale efficiently and trying to figure out, okay, how can I maximize my buying power going into each next purchase? And really the secret to all of this is strategic planning. So having a plan in place going into this, having the conversation early and knowing where you stand, what your buying power is currently, and then looking at ways to maximize your buying power, for instance, there’s different ways that we can structure deals when we’re looking at, let’s say a short term rental, for instance, we have a lot of clients that want to use the 10% down vacation home loan. Well that 10% down vacation home loan has a full hit to your debt to income ratio.
So you have to fully qualify for that, which will really limit your buying power. The other alternative is the 15% down investment property loan through Fannie Mae. And by putting that extra 5% down, we can use the forecasted rent to help you qualify, which general rule of thumb will double your buying power. So that’s just one instance of how it is very important to have a plan going into this and really understand on an annual basis, you know, what your vision, your goals are. And then you know, really connecting the dots and how you’re gonna go from where you are currently to where you want to go and have that plan clearly laid out so you know how much you’re gonna have to come up with for each next purchase. And um, ultimately where your limit’s gonna be because the debt to income ratio is extremely important when you’re scaling from property one to 10 because that is the maximum finance property limit with Fannie Mae.

Dave:
That’s super helpful. So it sounds like actually depending, not just on the person and their debt to income, but also what loans they take out is going to influence their DT I, is that correct?

Jeff:
Absolutely. Looking at it from a primary residence perspective, you know, there’s no rent to help offset that payment unless you’re buying, you know, two to four units. So that’s gonna have a full hit to your debt to income ratio the same way that a 10% down vacation home loan will on the investment side, when we’re looking at, you know, the different investment property options, we can use the forecasted rent. So there’s a way to actually, you know, factor that in to minimize the impact of your debt to income ratio in order to maximize your buying power.

Dave:
Got it. Okay. So that means just for everyone out there, that means that using investor focused loans, although they tend to require more down, higher down payments, could actually be beneficial to scaling in a different way because it’ll be easier to get loans, subsequent loans, I should say.

Jeff:
Absolutely. And this is one of the things that varies widely in my industry. Some lenders have a 20% or 25 or even 30% down minimum if you’re hearing that shop around a bit because a lot of times what ends up happening is, is that some lenders just don’t have the licensing, the required licensing to do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, which open up the lower down payment requirements or options. So just a little bit of advice, uh, for any investors out there that there are 15% down investment property loans that are, uh, Fannie Mae loans that have lower rates and fees with no prepayment penalties versus the non-conventional products like the DSCR where you could do as little as 15% down. That program finally came back, I mean it completely evaporated after March of 2022. And we are just now seeing the, uh, first, uh, guidelines coming out here over the last 30 to 45 days. And so it’s a, um, a sign of things to come. I mean, the market’s starting to open up a bit. There’s a little bit more of a risk appetite in this space again, but as a general rule of thumb on the DSCR side, those loan programs are gonna require a minimum of 20% down at the moment.

Dave:
Alright, so we’ve covered what debt to income ratio is and why this is a hurdle for investors, but how do you get past it? We’ll hear from Jeff about both conventional and unconventional loan options to scale right after the break. Welcome back investors. I’m here with Jeff Welgan, breaking down how to keep buying properties past the debt to income hurdle. Let’s jump back in. Well, I do wanna dig into some specific loan types that you would recommend, but I wanna ask a broader question about using rental income for your DTI and just to make sure everyone understands, when you’re considering your debt to income ratio, if you’re not currently investor, basically they’ll just look at your W2 income or your 10 99 income or however you make money and then compare that to the debt. But as an investor, ideally what you want is to, if you have a property or two, you wanna take the rental income from those properties and show to the lender that, look, you know, my income is actually higher than just my part-time job or my full-time job. It should also include, uh, the rental income that I’m generating. But from what I understand, that is not always possible. Right Jeff? Like sometimes rents are not considered, uh, for your income and sometimes they are, are there any rules of thumb about when they are and aren’t?

Jeff:
Yeah, so the, the first year you buy the property, we can use the lease a, like on a long-term strategy, we can use the lease agreement, use 75% of that to help offset the mortgage payment the same way that we do at the time of acquisition. You know, when you’re purchasing the property, we’re gonna use the forecasted rents to help you qualify and we can use 75% of that figure. So for the first year until you file that on a tax return, we’re able to utilize that, you know, the, or the lease agreement, um, to help you qualify for the next purchase. And this is one of the ways that investors will scale quicker, um, by using the, you know, true investment property loans versus using let’s say like a 10% down vacation home loan for a short or a midterm rental. And so once the property has been, um, in operation for over a year and you’ve reported it on a tax return, then we have to go off of the Schedule E and there’s a calculation that we need to use, um, based off of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac guidelines.

Dave:
Okay, that makes sense. So basically use a projection until there’s actual data that you can use, then you go off that, that seems to create sort of this challenge or trade off for a lot of investors as they’re trying to scale. Because on one hand, using a traditional investment loan will help you with your DTI, but they typically require 25% down. So how do you advise your clients who are thinking about building a portfolio for this foreseeable future to balance those two competing interests?

Jeff:
Yeah, it’s a great question. The 25% down is on units on the investment side. So as long, if you’re looking at, you know, one unit you can do, depending on your strategy and which strategy you’re doing, um, on short and midterm rentals, you can do 10% down. And then for, uh, single unit investment properties, it’s a minimum of 15% down. That’s

Dave:
Really good. Uh, advice for anyone who is looking to scale and understandably is having a hard time reaching 20 or 25% down payments. You can consider some of the asset classes that Jeff was just talking about. Jeff, do you have any other pieces of advice for investors, uh, using conventional lending methods that could help them scale?

Jeff:
Absolutely. So for, uh, any business owners out there run all of your debts, your business debts through your business bank account, even if you personally guaranteed them and the reporting on your personal credit, as long as we can show for 12 months that you have made those payments on time directly from a business account, we can exclude those from your personal debt to income ratio. And then when it comes to rental income, any type of rental properties, we’re able to use the depreciation as an add-back. So just keep that in mind. Same thing with businesses. If you have depreciating assets within the business, we can use that depreciation as an add-back. And this is one of the ways that investors and business owners minimize their taxes while still being able to qualify for conventional financing because in the eyes of us as lenders and underwriters, depreciation is looked at the same way as income.

Dave:
Wow. I I actually never knew that. Is that something that most people talk to a CPA about or can you just do it yourself?

Jeff:
I would definitely talk to A CPA. You’re gonna want to talk to an investor friendly accountant that understands this space. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients that run into issues that are working with tax preparers and not to say anything bad about preparers, but you need somebody, especially as you’re starting to scale your business that understands tax strategy when it comes to real estate investing. And really that’s part of the strategic planning aspect of this that we do on an annual basis with our clients. We sit down every year at the beginning part of the year before tax time, discuss our client’s goals with them and see what they, you know, what their goals are for the upcoming year. And then we work backwards and, um, put together a plan on how to really connect those dots so they can scale effectively and efficiently every year.
And then what we ultimately try to do is going into tax time, find that equilibrium point, you know, where they’re not overpaying in taxes and not giving the IRS any more money than they have to. But, uh, still showing enough net income and depreciation to where they’re meeting their goals for the upcoming year. And I have to be very clear about this because I am not a CPA, I cannot give specific tax advice, but what we can do is based off of, you know, a draft copy of the return that you and your accountant put together, we can then put together a plan coming out of that saying, based off of your income, uh, for the year, this is what you qualify for. And then if you wanna scale up past that, then we look at non-conventional options like the DSVR loan.

Dave:
Well, having taken an embarrassing long time myself, , to move from a traditional CPA to a real estate focused one, I can attest to what Jeff just said, that it is extremely helpful and worth the time and effort. And uh, actually BiggerPockets recently just created a free tool to help introduce you to, uh, investor friendly CPAs. So if you want to find one for yourself, you can go to biggerpockets.com/taxpro and check that out. Jeff, let’s switch to maybe some less conventional lending options for people who are looking to scale. Do you have any recommendations for us there?

Jeff:
Yeah, so like the DSCR loan, I’m sure your audience is all familiar with it. It means debt service coverage ratio, it’s a mouthful. Uh, basically what the, it’s a fancy acronym for does the property cash flow. And so from a lending standpoint, we’re just looking at the cash flow analysis of the property and we look at the property like a business. I mean this is the closest thing we’ve had to stated income loans since, uh, before the great recession. And this is the program that’s used on the commercial lending side that’s been adapted to residential real estate for business purposes only. So the important part with this is you can’t buy primary residences or second homes with it. And this is the preferred method to scale once you get past the 10 finance property cap. Or there are times for tax reasons where, let’s just say between that seven and 10 property range, where depending on your strategy, it may make more sense to start putting larger down payments down versus giving the, uh, IRS more money, um, and have to pay a higher tax rate in order to hit those last few properties.
And so with this program specifically, this is the one that you can scale up to. You see everybody that has, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, a hundred properties, this is the preferred method to scale past 10. But there are other options. So for business owners, for instance, there’s a business bank statement program that doesn’t get a lot of publicity or doesn’t get out there as much. Uh, with this program specifically, you know, it’s for business owners, you know, one of the, you know, the benefits of being a business owner is you get to write everything off, pay very little in taxes. Problem is, it’s a double-edged sword from a lending standpoint because it doesn’t always put you in the best position to qualify for conventional financing. And so with this program specifically, we can use 12 to 24 months business or personal bank statements if you run your business income through a personal statement.
And what we do is we add up all the qualified deposits through the business, we average ’em out, and then we’re required to, depending on the type of business, uh, back out an expense factor. So for instance, you know, a realtor that’s working out of their house, you know, uh, working from home has very little overhead versus let’s say a restaurant that has very high overhead. So there’s different expense factors. Once we’ve determined the expense factor factor for the business, then we back that out and then use that average as income instead of looking at their tax returns.

Dave:
Okay, got it. That, I think I’m following that. So basically is that applying to DSCR loans specifically?

Jeff:
Great question. So these are two totally different programs.

Dave:
The okay then I don’t understand . Yeah,

Jeff:
The DSCR loan, the DSCR program, this is the one that’s the closest to stated income financing. We are just looking at the, uh, cash flow analysis of the property. Does the rent cover the all in PITI payment, you know, principal interest, taxes and insurance? If it does by a dollar or more, it’s cash flowing and the minimum ti at the moment, 20% there is that 15% down option on a limited basis in strong markets. Um, that’s coming back. So

Dave:
With the DSCR loan, let me just clarify for everyone. So basically this is similar to commercial underwriting, it’s not based on your personal income, your personal credit worthiness. And that’s why it’s such an attractive option for people who are trying to scale. Because if you’re butting up against limitations with your DTI, rather than having the bank or your lender look at your personal income, just say, Hey, I am buying a deal that’s gonna pay for itself. So what I make as an individual doesn’t really matter. And so that’s why DSCR loans are so attractive to people who are trying to scale and can find cash flowing deals. Now, just to, I just wanna explain that the way this is calculated, like you said, is can the ca the property cover the debt service? And you said that as long as it’s a dollar over, you can get a loan on that. Is that right? Because I’ve, I’ve looked at these types of loans and a lot of times I’ve seen it at one point that DSCR needs to be a hundred and like your, your cash flow needs to be 120% of your expenses, for example, not just, uh, a 1.0 on the DSCR.

Jeff:
It depends on the strategy. So on the short term side, yes there are some restrictions for short-term rentals. Huh. But on the long term side, it’s one. And we’re, so when you look at commercial financing, a lot of times they will have a minimum of a 1.15 or one and a quarter, sometimes even higher. And so it really just depends on how risky the property is. So when we’re looking at, let’s say just using air DNA and a, you know, short term rental analysis at A-D-L-T-V, uh, they want a higher DSCR. So one and a quarter or above typically versus a property that we’re taking the more conservative approach and looking at it from a long-term perspective, there’s more flexibility there because it is the more conservative approach and you know, terms tend to be better, you know, on the longer term analysis versus the mid or the, the short as well.

Dave:
Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah, I’ve never looked at it for a residential property, but that, that makes sense.

Jeff:
And it’s great that you brought that up too ’cause a lot of investors, lenders out there will have their own overlays. So this is, you know, going back to the debt to income ratio conversation and this specifically, if you’re running into problems with certain lenders out there, my best recommendation is to shop around a bit because a lot of lenders will have their own underwriting overlays, like a minimum of 20 or 30, 25 or 30% down.

Dave:
Thank you for for talking me through the DSCR side. Now you were explaining earlier about a business bank statement loan. Can you clarify for me how that works again? ’cause I’m not sure I fully understood.

Jeff:
Yeah, so to sum it up, we’re looking at 12 to 24 months business bank statements or personal, um, in lieu of, or instead of looking at tax returns.

Dave:
And so can this be any kind of business or is this specifically a real estate investing business?

Jeff:
There are very few limitations to this. The only limitations I’ve run up against over the last couple of years with these are we have, you know, short-term rental investors that have multiple properties and they have, you know, 20 different accounts, you know, one account for each property. It’s a maximum of two accounts, uh, with mo Okay. Investors on the secondary market. So, but as far as limitations from other types of businesses, there really are no limitations. It can be a realtor working out of their house, it can be a restaurant and anywhere in between. Okay.

Dave:
And if you go this route and use a business bank statement qualification process, does that mean that you’re putting up any collateral from your business?

Jeff:
Not from the business, no. I mean, that’s a great question. So this is not collateralized by the business. You can use business funds for your down payment reserves, but where this really differs from the DSCR loan, the DSDR is for investment properties only the business bank statement loan, you can do a primary residence, a second home investment properties, and for instance, on the primary side it’s a minimum of 10% down. So you can get in with better terms on these business bank statement loans with, you know, lower down payment, better rates and different property types than you can on the DSCR side. So that’s one of the big benefits of, you know, providing this additional paperwork because it shows your ability to repay. It’s a little bit less risky than the DSCR loan when all we’re doing is looking at, you know, the profitability of the property versus when we have an established business and business owner that can show they have, you know, the cashflow analysis of their actual business. It looks a lot stronger from a lending standpoint.

Dave:
All right, we have to take one more quick break, but when we come back we’ll talk about how to know which of these loan types might be a good fit for you. We’ll also get into some tips for how investors and lenders can work together as a team to strategically set yourself up to buy more properties. So stick around. Welcome back. I’m here with Jeff Welgan talking about loan options for investors who might own a few properties but are trying to scale up further. Let’s pick up where we left off, Jeff. Now that we understand some of the conventional and some of the unconventional, or let’s just say less conventional, they are increasingly popular ways for people to finance some properties. Do you have any guidelines on who should think about what types of loans?

Jeff:
You know, there’s no one size fits all unfortunately when it comes to mortgage lending and everybody’s situation’s different. And so the, again, the earlier you can start having these conversations to figure out what options are available for you, the better. Uh, there are other programs out there if you wanna talk about it. There’s an asset qualifier loan you wanna touch on that?

Dave:
Sure. What is

Jeff:
It? Yeah, it’s another non-conventional product. So with the asset qualifier loan, this is a great product for investors that may not have documentable income but have reserves that have money in the bank, have liquidities. So what we do in lieu of, you know, calculating a debt to income ratio the traditional way of through employment or retirement or things along those lines, what we do is we look at the assets that client has, liquid assets, retirement accounts, checking, savings, uh, investment accounts, um, you name it. And there’s a calculation that we can use to actually calculate that into a debt to income ratio without having to touch those funds or collateralize them.

Dave:
That’s pretty cool. Yeah, I mean that, that totally makes sense, right? Like, uh, I can imagine perhaps people who are retired or who have a lot of assets or you know, just got a big windfall, but their income’s not so high, but they’re still able to pretty easily able to service debt. It’s just not in the traditional way.

Jeff:
Yeah, and it’s tough because of the qualified mortgage provision of the Frank Dot act that came out of the great recession to make that work on the conventional side because in order to use retirement accounts like that, you have to be of retirement age. So for instance, I mean we have a lot of tech workers that we work with that have a lot of money, but they either have been laid off or they’ve quit their W2 jobs to become full-time real estate investors. And so this is a great way to bridge the gap where if you have a lot of money, there’s no age restriction with this. I mean, we have people that are in their twenties and thirties that are taking advantage of this. And um, you know, it’s a great way to also bridge the gap where let’s just say you may not have enough documentable income and your debt to income ratio doesn’t work traditionally and you have money in the bank, we can then use or supplement or subsidize the debt to income ratio with the asset calculation.

Dave:
Okay, that’s great. So yeah, I, I think generally speaking, it sounds like, you know, if you can do conventional, oftentimes that does make sense. Uh, ’cause you often get favorable terms, but the theme it seems to be between these less conventional options is just finding ways that you can reduce the risk of the loan in the eyes of the bank, right? Because that’s really what it comes down to is whether you’re providing business bank statements or cashflow projections or summary of your assets, the bank is basically just trying to figure out are you going to be able to repay this loan or not? And conventional loans just have this very rigid sort of way of evaluating that question. And these unconventional ways, they’re not shady, they’re not necessarily bad, they just have a little bit more flexibility in evaluating you or your deal for potential for risk and ability to service your debt.

Jeff:
And I’m glad you brought that up because when it comes to conventional financing and government financing, it’s very black and white. You know, the guidelines are the guidelines. They do change occasionally, but it’s not very frequently in the non-conventional space. It’s a land of gray. So there’s a lot of room for exceptions. The guidelines are constantly changing depending on the ebbs and flows of the market. And you know, at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that these are, this is pools of money on the secondary market, on the non-conventional side that’s lending in this space. And depending on what’s going on, you know, with our economy and you know, with all those geopolitical issues that we’re having, like for instance, it’s the 16th of April, 2024, we’ve had a rough week in the mortgage industry, your rates are going back up again. And now we’re starting to see guidelines tighten up on the secondary market in this non-conventional space because they’re becoming a little more risk adverse.

Dave:
Well, Jeff, you’ve given us a ton of really helpful information here, but I can imagine that as most investors are like, all right, those are great options, which one is right for me? Mm-Hmm. There is no, as you said, there’s no one size fits all rule, but how do you recommend investors work with their lender and perhaps also with their CPA based on this conversation to sort of chart out not just what loan is right for them next, but trying to develop sort of a longer term plan? Mm-Hmm, so that they don’t run into these DTI issues or that financing comes relatively easily as they scale their portfolio.

Jeff:
You know, with investors that are just starting out, you know, say anywhere between zero and five properties, you’re gonna wanna look at the conventional options because the conventional options are always going to give you the best cash flow. You know, they’re gonna maximize cash on cash return because the fact that you’re coming in with lower down payments and, uh, getting much better terms than you will on the non-conventional side. And there’s no prepayment penalties on any of these loans. That’s one of the big considerations in the conventional space. You can refinance or sell anytime you’d like. On the non-conventional side, most of these products have a prepayment penalty that range anywhere from one to five years. So make sure you’re asking those questions. And then as far as the planning side goes, you really need to find an investor focused, uh, loan officer and accountant like we’ve talked about that understand this space.
I always recommend ask a lot of questions. There’s no stupid questions and if you ever feel like the questions that you’re asking, you’re are not landing or you’re not getting the answers that you like, move on. There’s plenty of great los and accountants out there that you guys can work with. But, um, when you’re looking at it from, you know, let’s say property five to 10, that’s where you really need to, you know, have a clear plan and you, let’s say you don’t need one from one to five, but it’s easier to go get into properties two through let’s say four or five and just land in them and without any kind of a, a solid plan. And, but once you get past that point, that is really where you need to have a strategic plan in place because every decision you make is going to impact the next one. And if you don’t get off on the right foot and create a solid foundation, any of the small problems you have early on are just gonna get exponentially worse as you scale.

Dave:
That’s great advice, Jeff. I couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much for joining us. If you wanna connect with Jeff, we’ll put his contact information in the show notes below. Or if you want to connect with an investor friendly lender, you can do that for free on BiggerPockets as well. Just go to biggerpockets.com/lender finder and you can do that there. Jeff. Thanks again and all of you, thank you for listening. We appreciate you and we’ll see you next week for more episodes of the BiggerPockets podcast.

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • Investment property loans you’ve never heard of that’ll help you scale your portfolio faster
  • DTI (debt-to-income) explained and what to do if you can’t qualify for loans
  • DSCR (debt service coverage ratio) loans and using an investment property’s income to qualify
  • The one business loan you can use to buy rentals OR a primary residence
  • Getting pre-approved EVEN if you don’t have any income to report (seriously!)
  • How to choose the best loan for your portfolio and which mortgage to go after FIRST
  • And So Much More!

Links from the Show

Connect with Jeff:

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.