
Listen to “Episode 3 – Matt Gough – Product Market Alignment and Business Success” on Spreaker.
Listen to “Episode 3 – Matt Gough – Product Market Alignment and Business Success” on Spreaker.
In this episode, I interview Tom Merrifield (http://www.sc-homesolutions.com/) who is a successful businessman and real estate investor. Tom was a trooper for this interview as he suffered broken ribs from a bike accident the day prior and didn’t cancel the interview.
Tom is originally from California, but lived in German for 23 years up until 3 years ago, when he moved back to the states in Charleston, South Carolina. His primary career while in Europe was Pharmaceuticals, which he still has a business in; additionally, he has built a real estate portfolio very quickly since moving back to the states, and is constantly testing and growing his businesses.
You can find more about Tom and his real estate business at:
http://www.sc-homesolutions.com/
Tom and I cover many topics in this conversation, including:
Please enjoy!
Russ Scheider (@RussScheider) is a real estate investor and business owner in Charleston, SC. He was a general contractor for years until he and his wife, Natalie, started their own real estate investing company, which they continue to run very successfully to this day. Russ and Natalie have designed a business where they each have their specialties, all the while hiring virtual assistants and other services to help scale their business and reduce redundant activity. They can be found at: http://charlestonallcashhomebuyers.com/ or at 843-856-1440.
Russ and I cover many topics in this conversation, including:
Please enjoy!
Episode 1 – Russ Scheider Interview
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This morning I noticed a discussion topic on Bigger Pockets that caught my attention. An investor, Mathew Thompson of Evans, Georgia, @Matthew Thompson posed the question: Multifamily Properties – Too Good to be True?
To see the full discussion, check out the link above. Below you will see my response, which address some of Mathew’s specific questions. I hope you find this useful:
First, you are correct that multifamily on average has a higher cash flow relative to single family (if purchased correctly, there are always exceptions). I think a lot of folks buy single family with so-so cash flow with the hope that the property will appreciate faster than multifamily, which is sometimes the case, and make their profits at the end with the sale. Personally, I favor multifamily because you can get better cash flow and you can actually influence the price of the asset (force appreciate) much easier than you can with single family, which is far more reliant on the neighborhood and comps vs. income.
Second, you are talking about the difference of leverage: all cash, vs. most cash vs. little to no cash. You are correct that the less money you put down, the higher return you have, which actually goes to infinity if you put no money down. That being said, those returns do the same in reverse if the property is vacant, or goes down in value. This is why so many folks lost properties in 2007-8. They had very little money down, were over-leveraged on an under-performing asset, which makes a bad situation really bad. The simple rule is use conservative numbers, which your 50% expense rule is a good start, and leave a cushion for positive cash flow. For example, if after operating expenses of 50% and debt service, you only have $100/month cash flow, all it takes is one decent size repair to wipe out your cash flow for the entire year, or potentially 5 years if it’s and HVAC or Roof. So make sure to leave a cushion.
A really helpful tool to choose your optimal amount of leverage is a sensitivity analysis, which will weigh how much leverage you use (0%, 10%… 90%) relative to adjusting 1 other item at a time, such as appreciation or rent growth rate etc… this will show you in each circumstance how your ROI changes based on how much money you put down relative to different performance such as appreciation or vacancy or rent growth rate. Just remember, leverage exacerbates the outcome both good and bad.
Lastly, with your $100,000, I would recommend trying to buy a $500,000 multifamily asset. If you buy a mobile home park or Class C multifamily property, you can probably buy around $15,000 – $20,000/unit, so say 25 units +/-. If you put down $100,000 (20%), then you are financing around $400,000, which works out to around $3,200/month ($38,400/yr assuming 180 month term at 5%) debt service. If the property is a 10% cap rate, you should expect $50,000 before debt service, so your cash flow after debt service would be $11,600. Takeaways here: if you paid all cash, your return would be 10% (AKA Cap Rate), however, you are leveraging 80%, and your cash on cash return is 11.6%. Not a home run, but not bad.
Here is where this gets fun. Let’s assume you found a good deal that rents are below market, so after 1 month you increase rents by $40/unit. Now, assuming you purchased 25 units, you can increase your monthly cash flow by $40 x 25 units = $1,000/month or $12,000/year, so now your cash flow is $23,600, thus, a 23.6% return in year 1!
Not only that, you just increased the NOI of the property from $50,000 + $12,000 = $62,000, so at a 10% cap rate, you just increased the value of this property by (10 x $12,000 = $120,000) up to $620,000, in one month, by simply increasing rents $40. This is a highly simplified breakdown of everything, but the principles are the same whether it’s 5 units or 200 units, but the more units you can get at once the better in my opinion, which is why I would suggest getting a property like the one I mention above. Also, the good news is banks will like you borrowing on this property more than on single family because you are effectively buying a business that throws off money (Banks will be looking at the Debt Coverage Ratio among other things) whereas single family is a little more challenging for lenders at this scale.
Lastly, you can still get these returns with single family homes if you come across the right deals, it just usually takes more physical and capital expenditures to improve their value, which takes a lot more time and energy, whereas with multifamily, you can hopefully exploit mis-management vs physical distress.
Good luck to you. Let me know if you need help as you go down this road.
Cheers,
Roby
Top of Form
Source: Jumping With Tony Robbins
Photo by Tony Robbins Twitter Feed
Until last week I thought I pushed the boundary of energy and fanaticism, but to my surprise, Tony Robbins is in a completely different stratosphere when it comes to fanaticism. Little did I know a person could go 12 hours straight without a break, be jumping up and down and screaming at the top of their lungs…then I met Tony.
Tony Robbins has been an inspiration to me as an individual and business owner for years, with books such as Unlimited Power, Awaken the Giant Within and many others. Last week I took the next step in my education with Tony and completed a week-long conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, for Business Mastery.
Boom, here we go!