​Small office and cowork space is in high demand!  The 1,000 - 4000 square foot office space market is very soft right now.

Have available space in this range which you can’t seem to move?  Consider converting it to a cowork space!

What I have learned is that small private offices are definitely where the demand is, not so much open cowork space.  However most of the cowork space out there does lack the cool dramatic factor to it that cowork spaces like WeWork are experts at creating.  So perhaps local developers haven’t been able to create a product desirable enough to create traction in this market.

  Do you work on a cowork environment?  If so what are your thoughts and what would you like to see?

​As a real estate investor you may have the best intentions in your heart when you take on a new project, but chances are there may be adverse affects that your project may have on a community and it’s people.  Are you aware of them?

We just purchased a dilapidated apartment building which was fully occupied with long term tenants.  When I acquired the building I figured, “ah these folks will be happy to leave.  These unsanitary and unsafe conditions are putting them in harms way.”

I was wrong in my assumptions.  In fact, the tenants formed a tenant union to act as a united voice to stop the vacation of this building.  I met with them this week to negotiate a solution that would be less painful than what I originally sought out to do.

Your actions have consequences.  And sometimes they can have a mix of good and bad affects.  You must balance the interests of your business and the interest of your conscience; create solutions that minimize the adverse affects you can have on your community!

​When we were kids, my parents missed out on a lot because of their jobs.  I felt the pain of my parents absence at things that were important to me when I was a child.  I can't blame them because they had work.  Think of how many Americans are in this position!

One of the most important reasons why I invest in real estate is financial independence.  As Americans, we are conditioned to receiving our weekly or bi weekly paycheck like a recovering addict is conditioned to receiving methadone.

Leaving the 9-5 can be scary (I had withdrawal symptoms after I quit mine), but by building a real estate portfolio in the background to your job, you will be surprised as to how much sooner you can create your own financial independence.  When it comes to our retirement horizon, time has never been on our side.  Each passing year puts wear and tear on our bodies and makes us less able to enjoy the things we want to do when we DO retire or become weaned off of a paycheck.

Real Estate investments have created this freedom for millions of Americans.  You can participate too!

​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.

​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.

​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.