We take for granted what is accessible in our life. We expect to wake up in the morning. We expect to go to bed under a roof. We expect our family and friends to always be there. Sometimes we say or do things to hurt them with the expectation that we can always make amends or seek forgiveness.
Gratitude. It doesn’t come naturally. We have to seek it and make it a habit we practice often. In this video, I discuss one way in which I practice daily gratitude. It’s made a huge difference in my life.
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Investment real estate is an incredible hedge against inflation. A lot of us have heard this, but what does it mean?
Every notice why things just get more expensive year after year? Food, cars, health care, gas... everything? Well rent usually goes up in an inflationary environment too! Furthermore, when you use leverage to purchase real estate, you are borrowing money at today's value and paying it back in depreciated dollars over time. The bottom line? Your cash flow grows over time as well as the underlying asset value, simply BECAUSE the cash flow is growing! If you find this video helpful please subscribe to our channel and share! If there are any topics pertaining to real estate investing that you want us to cover please comment! We have unrealistic expectations of how to process negativity in our lives. We get told, "Keep the PMA" Positive Mental Attitude. "Cut the negativity out." "Only think happy thoughts." Bullshit.
Our spiritual being is like a reservoir filled with dark and light water. In order to make room for more of the light we must expel the dark that takes hold. Hopefully this video brings some insight on how to process and channel the negative out of your being. Please share if this helps you. We just closed on a building with a vacant apartment. It is near the end of September. Fall is not the best time of year to rent an apartment. Most tenant prospects have already secured their housing. So what do you do?
1.) Expedite the make ready of your apartment. Time is not your friend. 2.). Make sure you are showing a finished product and so that it outclasses other rent comps so you can attract the best tenant prospect. 3.) You May need to price your apartment lower in order to be competitive. 4.) When you do place a tenant this time of the year, DO NOT do a one year lease, you don’t want to put yourself in this position again! Make sure to time it anywhere between April 30th and August 31st. * This is what applies to Rochester NY apartment markets and may not be relevant for warmer weather climates. If you have many apartments it’s good to have a sprinkling of lease expirations throughout the leasing season. Assuming you have a good retention rate, you won’t get stuck with an unmanageable amount of make readies the following year. Today I did my first CASH IN refinance! Yes I said CASH IN not CASH OUT. Meaning I had to bring $104,000 to close the deal. Why?
1.) I overshot my after rehab value on the properties I was refinancing. I used an income capitalization approach to forming my ARV instead of a sales comp approach (what I should have used.) What did I learn from this painful mistake? 1.) Stick to buying larger commercial properties which fall under commercial appraisal standards. Commercial real estate is considered any thing with a commercial use or 5 units + multifamily residential. This ensures that every dollar of net operating income that I drive is accretive to the property value. 2.) Appraisals (residential and commercial) are always more conservative on refinances. On a purchase, when you have a contract price, it carries a lot of weight with an appraiser who is working on your deal. APARTMENT TRENDS - How to position your apartment renovations to be relevant in this market!9/17/2018 You can't just keep your eye on the ball, you have to identify where trends are going in your local real estate market, or you could be leaving major money on the table!
In this video, I visit one of my investor friends who is doing a renovation on one of his newer acquisitions. Some of the things I learned is: 1.) How to make a small bedroom feel bigger. 2.) Optimizing the layout of a bathroom. 3.) Tenant prospects in our market are demanding higher end apartments. Millennials are spending a higher percentage of their income on rent than other generations. Saving and buying a house is not in the cards. Being in an awesome apartment in a highly walkable neighborhood is. Anxiety is a superpower. Those who have it have the potential to positively change the world around them. Anxiety is the feeling we get when we should take action but don’t. Those of us who are blessed with it want to take action all the time. Imagine if we harnessed this, how different our lives the world might be. Instead, many of us mute this feeling by using alcohol and drugs. Learn to channel this inclination to take action by casting your fears aside and do what you know you need to do. It’s not everyday that you get a check for $157,000! It would have been $151,000 if we didn’t postpone closing for a week! Why? We were able to save $6000 in mortgage tax by doing a mortgage assignment and consolidation rather “paying” off the previous mortgage. This little trick can not only be used on refinances of investment real estate but also purchases too! How? If the property you are buying has an existing mortgage on it you may be able to have that bank assign the mortgage to your bank who is offering the purchase money. This would then be assigned and consolidated with any new debt on the property. The previous bank may charge an assignment fee but that may be negligible in comparison to what you would save in closing costs! Commercial real estate brokers control the majority of deal flow in your market. Unfortunately you won’t find their best deals on the MLS or Loopnet. It’s an old school relationship business built upon years and trust. Well as the ancient Chinese proverb says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Getting out there NOW and networking is the best way to start the relationship building process. In a later video, I will give you tips on how to identify and engage the best broker for your goals! Sounds counter intuitive right? I got picked on pretty bad when I was in school. It didn't feel good at the time, but it put me through adversity early on that strengthened and matured my character before the beautiful and popular kids entered the real world. Last week was the first week of school for many young adults and I had them on my mind today as I reflected on the previous week. Social media was meant to connect but somehow I feel young people have never felt so isolated. If you are hurting, just know there are people that genuinely care for your spiritual and physical well being. They have gone through what you are going through and can support you if you only open up! |
AuthorMatthew Drouin is a full time real estate investor and REALTOR with 12 years of acquisition, disposition, development and management experience in Rochester, NY. Archives
January 2020
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