The Most Important Step to Investing in Real Estate!
How Do You Choose An Area To Invest In?
Part 2: The most important ratios to acquire/run your property
What Ratios Are You Using to Acquire/Run Your Property
Are You Making Offers from Pro forma Info?
Never, ever make any offers based on pro-forma info! At a minimum I require a T-12 (trailing 12 months) before I consider making any offers, and would prefer the last 2 years income and expenses. The broker (if one is involved) will probably tell you many offers are coming in and you better make an offer soon, you’ll get the actual income and expenses after the offer is accepted! Don’t fall for this BS! Either the broker isn’t able to get the actual income and expenses from the seller because the seller isn’t really trying to sell, or the broker is attempting to bid up the property and get the buyers to make contingent free offers so when the actual income and expenses are made known, the buyer can’t back out!
Best Time to Inspect a Property
When do you inspect a property you’re considering buying? I always like to go when the weather is at it’s absolute worst! Every property looks great when it’s 75 and sunny! It’s when it’s raining sideways with 30 mph winds I like to go see how the property is holding up! Are there ponds in parking lot? Tenants complaining about the roof leaking, again? Is the maintenance staff anywhere to be found?
Another good time to visit a property is Friday or Saturday night around midnight. Is there any drug or gang activity taking place? There may be a bigger problem at the property that needs attention! I always recommend getting a police report for the property to see how often and what activity is taking place there.
NOBODY GETS RICH QUICK!
I have known thousands of real estate investors in my 25+ year career and I’ll let you in on a secret! NOBODY GETS RICH QUICK! There’s a lot of hard work and education that goes into being a successful real estate investor and it doesn’t happen overnight! You need to invest in your knowledge of the market, the property, the real estate cycle, financing, and on and on! If someone says that you can get other people’s money to invest and you don’t know a thing about investing in real estate, wake up! Would you invest in somebody who doesn’t know anything about what they’re doing? You have to pay your dues and you do that by being smarter and working harder than everyone else!
Has your broker and/or their firm been disciplined?
What do you know about your commercial real estate broker? What about their company? Would you be surprised to find out they may have been disciplined by their state regulatory board? Or their firm may have been convicted of multiple disciplinary actions by the state regulatory agency? Find out by going to the state regulatory agency and look them up before you find out the hard way!
Your Unique Selling Proposition
You’re considering buying a “C” grade multi-family property and you think you can raise the rents to improve the cash flow. Can you? Did you compare this subject property to the competition? What can you do to differentiate this property from the rest? If this is a “C” grade property, have you checked out the “A” grade properties? What do they offer that you can’t? How much more do they charge compared to this property? What is their vacancy compared to this property?