Minnesota Real Estate Investors Association, Inc.

“Get Off Your Butt and go Buy a House.”  This is a statement I had heard years ago from an old friend when I was complaining about being a broke struggling want to be investor, so I listened to her and did it. That was back in the late 90’s and it was a good ride for many years.  But the last few years have been tough on a lot of real estate investors, me included.  Many of us had to hunker down, retrench and then recover from our battle wounds.  The length of recover was/is directly proportional to the magnitude of your original symptoms.  Some people unfortunately didn’t have the financial or emotional strength to weather the storm which I completely understand as I was almost one of them.  But now it is time to look forward and plan for the future rather than having to deal with repercussions from the past. 

I understand that there will still be a few things we all need to deal with from the past few years as we move forward, but move forward we must, and this is the year to do it.  Even though last year was a relatively good year for real estate investing, it was still a tough year for many investors because of all the competition and the lack of inventory on the market.  I personally struggled finding rehabs as well.  Between my partner and me, we looked at over 400 properties, make close to 200 offers and only got one MLS offer accepted.  Looking back, off all the properties that we made offers on that sold, they were all in multiple offer situations.  Even though we had plenty of cash to buy and always offered quick closings without contingencies, we were always out bid with very similar offers.  Many of those other properties that didn’t sell are still on the market and still overpriced. 
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Obviously it is, but how is it changing and what direction are we headed is the question most people are asking themselves these days. Some of the old school investors/realtors will relate to this article, but for most of you, this will seem like a radical new approach to real estate. You see, the changes I am going to be talking about or nothing more that real estate cycles coming back around full swing.

Over the last ten years or so, all you needed was a pulse and a few months to build appreciation in order to make money in real estate. That has changed drastically, today not only do you need a pulse, you also need a creative thinking brain. However, just having a pulse will not get you a mortgage anymore. In fact, I think the only way to get a mortgage today is to prove that you absolutely don’t need it, and then you have at least a fighting chance to get past underwriting.

Over the past two years, the real estate market has been going through a market correction, because of the over inflation of housing prices. Most of these properties have been either short sales or foreclosed upon by the banks and put back on the market at reduced prices. In many areas, prices have begun to stabilize and the new market values have been established. The first time home buyers tax credit helped boast these sales and stabilize prices. However, access to financing is getting harder and interest rates are expected to increase over the next few years. This will help to bring down prices of the surrounding properties over the next few years. 
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On our Monday night Training Webinar, I was asked a question from one of our students about driving traffic to their free website that everyone receives with their free account at Real Estate Promo. I gave them a suggestion to find another investor who has a property for sale right now and get their permission to market that property(s) on their websites. Then start creating ads on craigslist, kijiji, backpage and other online / offline marketing medias. This sparked a lot of interest and questions, so I decided to post a blog about the idea for everyone.

One of the struggles new investors have is activity. They spend all their time learning how to invest in real estate, but they don’t take a lot of action right away. This is probably due to fear and their misconception that they need to learn everything before they take any action. I am sure a lot of you seasoned investors can relate to this feeling of a newbie. Our Free Weekly Webinar Training is designed to not only to educate the new investors, but also to encourage them to take action, even if it is just small little baby steps to get started.

One of the struggles for seasoned investors is selling/renting their inventory. Personally from my own experience, my biggest struggles is when I have a property for sale, I spend all my time trying to fill the property that I stop doing what I am good at, which is locating and negotiating good deals. After I have that property filled, I then get back to finding more deals. All that time I have been marketing and driving traffic to my website. But if I don’t have any properties for sale on my website for a month or two, I am wasting good traffic from buyers, so I occasionally will market properties from fellow investors, just so that I have activity on my website. 
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Last night we covered an old Seller Financing Strategy that is making a comeback in a big way. Contract for Deeds / Seller Financing used to be very popular back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They went away in the early 2000’s when it became easier and cheaper to get a loan to buy a house than it was to rent a place. So Seller Financing wasn’t necessary over the last several years. But that is changing.

With the credit requirements and down payments needed to buy in today’s market, Seller financing will become the most popular choice of buyers and real estate investors in the near future. Another industry that went by the wayside in the early 2000’s is the Note Buying industry. A lot of Note Buyers were buying Contract for Deeds and other Seller Financing instruments (Paper). I believe that this business will make a comeback as well over the next few years.

REP Premium Members can watch the replay of last night’s training call at: https://www.realestatepromo.com/MyAccount/WeeklyTraining/2009-11-30/Default.aspx

Since real estate values have plummeted, Subject-To deals have been harder to do because most of the time, the mortgage balance from the seller is higher than the property values creating a situation that if we took over the sellers property and started making payments on their existing mortgages, then we would end up with a property that we could not make cash flow or even resell without having to pay down the mortgages ourselves.

While some lenders were accepting short sales, most lenders were waiting for their bail out from the government. Since that never happened, some lenders have been more susceptible to short sales. While short sales have been our only way to deal with over leveraged properties, we were forced to resell the properties to pay off the short sale. Which meant that Sub2 deals were not taking place which is why according to the National Association of Realtors®, about 50% of all transactions in the 4th Quarter of 2008 were either Foreclosures or Short Sale.

According to Bloomberg “ Citigroup Inc.’s agreement to back legislation that lets bankruptcy judges cut mortgage rates for at-risk borrowers drew criticism from ban
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It’s that time of year again, when we sit down and reflect on the previous year and look forward to the year ahead of us. This past year has been filled with extreme swings in the economy and our emotions. For some people 2008 was a great year and for others it was a nightmare. I have been caught right in the middle of both, so I guess for me, everything evened out and it was a year that makes me look back and ask, what the heck happened. I had some winners and some losers. The losers of course came in the last quarter of the year and I did pretty well during the first 3 quarters of the year. Some might look back with discouragement and frustration. I however am looking ahead with a clear determination to make 2009 the best year ever.

With the shake up in the credit markets and the stock markets, I see huge potential for 2009 in real estate. I believe we have hit the bottom, for the most part. A new president and administration will take office on January 20, 2009 and they have made it clear that they are focused on stimulating the economy. Again, for some this will be good and for others it will be bad. For real estate investors, this will be very good. Just like when the real estate market was hot, the economy seemed unstoppable and real estate prices climbed to artificially high prices, the collapse of the credit and financial markets has artificially lowered real estate prices below the point of where they normally would have settled at.
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As prices drop, foreclosures go up and interest rates fall, there has never been a better time to buy. Whether you are an investor or a first time home buyer, now is the time to buy. So why are most people just sitting on the fence? According to the Minneapolis Association of Realtors the median sales price fell to $175,000, that’s down 19.2 percent from the same time last year and the lowest November showing since 2001.

With all the bail outs and market uncertainty, buyers are waiting to see how low prices will drop. Meanwhile those buyers still need housing which is making for a strong rental market.

Buyers are willing to Lease with the Option to Buy, but they are not willing to put down a lot of money for fear of property values dropping even further and losing their non refundable option consideration because they have opted to not exercise their option to buy.

These market conditions are creating an artificially low price. I believe that once the credit market settles down, real estate values will stabilize and maybe even increase slightly right away. The only question is, when will this happen? I can't answer that, but I do know that now is a great time to buy and hold. Properties at these prices are cash flowing very well today, so why wait to see where prices will stop falling and pass up one all that cash flow and depreciation to someone is going to get, so it might as well be you.