Real Estate Investing Podcast

Property Management Onboarding: What to expect.

In this episode, Richard talks with property manager Lindsey about the landlord onboarding process and what it takes to come on board with a property management company. Lindsey offers advice on what you should look out for and provides great insight into the property management onboarding process. No matter where in the world your properties are, her advice and experiences will help you ask the right questions of your property management company.
 
Could you just take a few minutes just to give an overview from start to end of what to expect with the property management onboarding process? 
There's a couple of different ways that a house can come on board with a property management company. It could be that you already have a house within the Memphis Market and you are wanting to switch management companies. Or perhaps you are buying a new house in the Memphis Market for us to manage. You will typically speak with one of our sales agents if you are purchasing a new property, or you will speak with our principal broker, Aaron Ivey, to discuss the services that we offer. These should both be an expectation of any property management company you choose to work with.
 
Once you have that discussion and talk about possible rent ranges you might expect, our property management fees, and our additional services, such as property inspections, that can be instituted as part of our services to you. At his point, the property information then comes over to me, a property manager, and I get to type up all of the documents that we need to set you up with us. Depending on if the house is vacant or occupied, there are a couple of different approaches to the next steps.
If you'd like to learn more about real estate investor services from EPM Real Estate, Enterprise Property Management’s real estate division, please visit us at epmrealestate.com.
Call EPM Real Estate at 901.671.1015
Subscribe to this real estate investment property podcast at: http://BehindTheCurtainPodcast.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/EPMRealEstate
Twitter: @EPMRealEstate

Is the Real Estate BUBBLE real? When to buy Real Estate?

In this episode, we talk about the real estate bubble. Is it real, or is it just the made-up theory that the experts were trying to scare people with? Also, we ask, when is the right time to buy investment real estate? 
Is the real estate bubble real?
Let’s start off with the real estate bubble. I get this question a lot. So there's this bubble that we keep hearing about and all the experts talk about the real estate bubble. Now, there is a bubble, but in the conversations I'm having people are asking me is this another 2008? are we going to see a collapse? Though I don't have a master’s in economics, I believe the driving force behind the collapse in 2008 was bad loans backed by the federal government in the multiples of millions. These were loans that were backed as stated income loans, where people just said, hey, I make $300,000 a year, and they just wrote you a loan if you pulse; if your heart was beating you got the money.
This bubble, that's come, is nowhere near gonna be as catastrophic as 2008. So everybody just needs to calm down and relax about the bubble. Memphis has been ridiculous the last three or four months with people buying property as if they're about to put a moratorium on buying homes, period, and that you'll never be able to buy another house until the end of time. Buyers are paying 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars over market, so yes, there is a bubble, and it's going to correct.
 
When is the right time to buy real estate?
I'm baffled by this every year. Come mid-March, the phone starts ringing off the hook, and property investors are calling us from around the world and all across the country wanting to buy, they get hot and heavy, and they start throwing money around buying real estate as fast as we can get it. 
I encourage many investors to walk away from deals because I don't think it makes financial sense. Some go for it. Some don’t. It's not my job to make that decision, but rather it's my job to guide them and give them my best advice. What I don't understand is that investors want to buy up everything they get their hands on between March and August and, come the end of August, then they just go silent. I say October through February is the best time to buy investment real estate, and here’s why. In the Fall, the market has cooled off and there are fewer buyers than properties, so you can get better deals on properties. Your ROI on your investments is going to be a better deal versus going on and competing against 30 other investors when the real estate market is HOT, and maybe 20 homeowners are competing and you end up overpaying for something that you could have got for a lower price if you'd just waited.
 
If you'd like to learn more about real estate investor services from EPM Real Estate, Enterprise Property Management’s real estate division, please visit us at epmrealestate.com.
Call EPM Real Estate at 901.671.1015
Subscribe to this investment property podcast at: http://BehindTheCurtainPodcast.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/EPMRealEstate
Twitter: @EPMRealEstate

Property Management Questions New Investment Property Owners Ask

Have you ever wondered what a good property management company can do to protect your property investment? Every investor is different, they come with different goals, different plans, and they're at different points in their investing career. In this episode, we discuss how we screen tenants, our pricing strategy for setting rent, the procedures you should look for to know a property management company is keeping an eye on how the tenant and is caring for your property. We also chat about the property management software we use and how we facilitate the maintenance and upkeep of your investment properties when upgrades are needed.
If you'd like to learn more about real estate investor services from EPM Real Estate, Enterprise Property Management’s real estate division, please visit us at epmrealestate.com.
Call EPM Real Estate at 901.671.1015
Subscribe to this investment property podcast at: http://BehindTheCurtainPodcast.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/EPMRealEstate
Twitter: @EPMRealEstate
 

Investment Property Flips, Renovations, New Builds

Investment Property Flips, Renovations, New Builds
On today's show, we’re speaking to Wendy Provence, a realtor here at EPM Real Estate. Wendy tells us how she came to do her first investment property flip, renovations, and she discusses her approach to new builds and what she’s learned through completing a number of new build projects. Wendy just looks at a piece of land and says, “I know exactly what I'm going to do with this!” She is equally a visionary and an investor. Throughout this interview you’ll hear how she's very positive, she's definitely a visionary, and in fact, she may well be the number one visionary at EPM Real Estate.

1031 Exchange Rule Changes & Real Estate Deed Fraud

In this episode, we'll be discussing the 1031 exchange, what it is, and the proposed legislation change that will impact property investors. In Neighborhood Chat, Brett tells us about his weekend trip in East Tennessee and a new tiny home rental project he's been working on there. We'll finish by discussing what steps the courts need to put in place in order to protect homeowners from the ongoing title theft problem.
 
Alright, so let's discuss the 1031 exchange proposed changes, which would affect real estate investments where the profits exceed $500,000. This is part of Biden's $1.8 trillion American Families Plan and is alleged to target some tax loopholes. The only thing I don't know is what are the loopholes? The article refers to tax loopholes that have been in effect since 1921. It appears that the media has been calling these loopholes. Oh, the media love those loopholes. Whenever they say close loopholes, that means you're making too much money and we're not gonna allow that to happen anymore. That's what I take from it.
 The proposal is to change the 1031 exchange rules. For those of you who don't know, 1031 exchanges allow you to move money from one property investment to another property investment, without incurring capital gains tax. Let's say you own two properties in California worth $1million, and you want to move that money to other real estate investments. I'm going to give you an example that one of my investors is doing right now. He's selling his California property and he's moving that $1million to Memphis because he can buy eight homes producing about $6,000 a month growths here with that $1million, versus getting $3,800 a month out or so with the California investments. He's going to almost double his investment by moving that money because he can buy so much more. So what he's gonna do is a 1031 exchange. He will sell his California investment property and put it into a 1031 exchange, by using a licensed agent who does 1031s, he will then have 45 days to go out and find like properties. Once an investment property is located, I believe it’s 60 days from that date to close. If you do that, then there's no capital gains tax because your profit from those properties is tax-exempt, as long as you're investing into like property.
Listen to learn more...
 

Real Estate Market Conditions & Memphis Council Proposal to end Eviction Set-Outs

Real Estate Market Conditions
In this episode, we discuss the current real estate market conditions and how investors' offers on properties are often being outbid by $10,000 or more by private groups or individuals. The real estate market is hot, and how is this impacting real estate investors?
 
Memphis Council Proposal to end Eviction Set-Outs
Will also discuss a proposed ordinance, by Councilman JB Smiley, Jr., to end eviction set-outs, part of his increased efforts to fight blight in the community and promote beautification in the city. But what will this mean for landlords and tenants, and what is the cost of alternatives to eviction set-outs.

COVID-19 & CDC Eviction Moratorium: legal challenges facing landlords and property managers.

Back in March, in Episode 0007, attorney Mike Mitchell joined us to discuss the current legal challenges facing landlords and property managers due to COVID-19, including the much-debated eviction moratorium. In this episode, you have the opportunity to hear the full-length interview.

Why Whitehaven, Raleigh, Cordova, & East-Memphis are great areas for property investment!

Why Whitehaven, Raleigh, Cordova, & East-Memphis are great areas for property investment!
Memphis has some great investment property opportunities. Brett and Glenn discuss the various ares of Memphis, chat about census data, and provide real-world figures of what you could expect from investing in Whitehaven, Raleigh, Cordova, and East-Memphis. They delve into the important anchors for each area - anchors are important because these are the parts of town where there's something that brings about economic prosperity.
For example, in Whitehaven, Graceland is now one of the highest grossing tourist attractions in the country, and that's all because of the investment that was made into Whitehaven a couple of years ago. Elvis Presley Enterprises came out and said it was going to pay all of its employees, and I'm talking thousands, a living wage.

Rental scams & How-to sell tenant occupied properties in this record-HIGH housing market.

Rental scams are ever-present.  In April, the Shelby County Sheriff's Department indicated that five or more people had each been caught up in a rental scam. Each had been scammed out of many thousands of dollars. This was a case where deceptive ads have been placed on Facebook marketplace. In one of the cases, a woman said she found the “perfect rental house”, and when she contacted the person behind the Ad, a man claimed to be the owner of the home.
We’ll have more stories of the strange, but true.
Brett and Glenn discuss how they are currently assisting investors with tenant-occupied property, to sell their homes while property values are at an all-time high. In the crash, we had a number of investors or even homeowners that had to leave their homes for jobs, so they turned their homes into rentals or they purchased homes for pennies on a dollar because they were in foreclosure mainly.
 
I'm dealing with one right now it is over in the East Memphis area. So this investor decides they want to sell. They've owned the house for 10-years, and it's gone up significantly in value, almost $90,000 in value, versus what they purchased it for. 
 
So they want to sell, but the problem is they have a tenant that's going to be in there until November of 2021. So they contacted me and, as we're talking, it's like, well, I'd like for you to just go ahead and evaluate the house and let's put it on the market in November. Well, I put the brakes on right there. I said, ”Listen. Right now inventory is low and the market’s hot. Everybody's paying over the asking price for any house that goes up for sale, and it's gone in a day.” I said, “If you wait until November, the record high housing prices are likely to end and you're not gonna have the advantage of the hot buying season. So the number I'm giving you today could shrink because, as we have more inventory than buyers, property values and purchase prices are going to level back off back to what they should be.”
 
People want to purchase no later than July to get their kids into school in August. That part of the market tends to level off, or cool off, in August or later. This then gives investors a greater opportunity to buy.
I've done this five or six times now, so what I've been able to do is, I've contacted the property owner and told them the current home value. Here's what you are probably gonna sell it for, you're gonna get over asking prices, and here's your net. They like those numbers. But there's one big problem... there's a tenant still sitting in the house until November! So what I'm able to do? Listen in and find out.

Making Wise Real Estate Investments & Finding Expert Property Management

Making Wise Real Estate Investments & Finding Expert Property Management
Joe Viramontez joins us to talk about his real estate investment experiences, his bad property management experiences, and he shares how he sought expert property management and hired Enterprise Property Management, Inc. for the past 10 years. Joe also shares stories about his entrepreneurship outside of the real estate industry. 
 
[**Excerpt**]
Aaron Ivey: Joe Viramontez! I want to thank you for joining us on the Behind the Curtain podcast. You have been with Enterprise now for how many years? Do you know?
 
Joe Viramontez: Oh, it's been at least 10 years.
 
Aaron Ivey: Yeah, good grief.
 
Joe Viramontez: Yeah, probably maybe 8 to 10 years.
 
Aaron Ivey: Yeah. That's insane. I remember when you called me and I’ve forgotten who was managing your properties at that time, but it was really interesting to receive your call, because it's not every day that an investor calls you on the phone and says, hey, I've got about eight properties, and I'd like to transfer all of them to your management company.
 
Joe Viramontez: So back in 2008, during the housing crunch, that's when we purchased all our homes in Memphis, and everybody asked me why Memphis. It was because we knew somebody over there - a property manager that was getting bank-owned homes and, you know the story back in 2008, bank-owned homes, you're able to buy them much cheaper to get in and start your investment portfolio if you will. So that's what we did. I went from one property manager to another property manager, and then finally to Enterprise. The first two property managers started off great, but they did not deliver on what they said they were going to deliver, and ultimately I found out that there was some shady happenings occurring behind the scenes. 
 
So we left one, I won't mention names, and then we went to another one, but it just did not feel as though they were really taking care of me and my properties or keeping us informed. Then I went on the internet and looked through Yelp and found Enterprise Property Management. You guys had 5-stars, you had nothing but great reviews, and Yelp’s a pretty reliable source, and that's when I reached out to you guys, and it's been fantastic ever since. 
 
Aaron Ivey: Well, that's awesome. So, let me just ask a couple of questions and then we'll get back into the Enterprise experience. Joe has been amazing. We've had nothing but an excellent interaction. Joe, you could teach a crash course to investors on how to own and operate real estate from 2,000 miles away. I wish that you could do that and for our real estate investors to have an opportunity to learn from you. So that's kind of what we're going to try to do today; just talk about what your experiences were like owning real estate here in Memphis, Tennessee, what you would do differently, and what you really enjoyed.
 
Joe Viramontez: So I'm a retired fire captain from the Santa Clara County Fire Department and, you know, I retired, oh, 10 years ago now. 
 
What happened was I've always been kind of an entrepreneurial guy. And while I've been working in the fire service, you know, I always had little side businesses - something just to augment the money coming in from my family - and what happened was my friend, an old-time friend that I grew up with, he knew somebody that was a property manager in Memphis. So when he was telling me about the homes he was buying I thought wow that's great, and they were bank-owned homes, so you could get them at a discount. We started buying homes - literally buying a house how every month back in 2008 - and we were in a position where during that time you're able to buy a house for let's say $100k and I was using my HELOC (home equity line of credit) so I could pay cash for the house and then I would turn around go to the bank and get a cash-out refinance loan. I was able to get back almost all my money less $4,000  per house, so essentially I only had $4,000 out of pocket for that house, because I was able to get a 30-year fixed loan for the house and could take that money again to go buy another house, and do the same thing go back to the bank get a 30-year fixed loan. I would only be up $4,000 on each home and essentially we bought our 10 homes for $40,000. I had all of the homes on a 30-year fixed loan, so I was rock solid on our loans. 
 
I had a friend that got 15-year loans and he got underwater real quick because he ran through a rough patch during like 2009/2010, and because he had a 15-year loan, which he could have refinanced, he was bleeding every month. So we were right with our 30-year loans and then it was just a matter of having our homes maintained but, as I found out, not all management companies are the same. You really have to do your due diligence and find the best one.
 
Aaron Ivey: That's fantastic. We always try to keep the trend positive on the podcast, but I'd like for you to kind of go in the other direction and tell us some of the challenges that you had with the old property manager. What kind of things did you experience? 
Joe Viramontez: As an absentee landlord, let's say and you live 2,000 miles away, you’ve got to be able to sleep at night. Any investors out there, if it requires a plane ticket to fly to get to your rentals, are you going to be able to sleep comfortably? If you can sleep at night, then I would say go ahead and do it. If you can't do that, some investors have to see their property and they have to be able to drive to it. I've known guys in the fire service where they would buy a house in Sacramento because they wanted to be able to drive to it.
 
All the numbers for us would work for Memphis, and I could sleep at night knowing that I had homes out there. I didn't worry about it but, as far as the property managers go, our first one everything started out great and, then as we started to work with them, we started to find out that the people that were doing repairs on the homes were actually relatives of the property manager. I don't ordinarily care about that. I mean, I understand they have family members they want to be in on the business. I'm good with that, but myself and some of the other California investors would talk a lot amongst ourselves as far as how things are going and we started to see things popping up that didn't make sense. We started to see repairs being made that were a lot more than they probably should have been, for instance. 
 
I want to give a shout-out to you guys for your monthly reports every month. They are fantastic and it shows me exactly what we're spending. Money coming in, money going out. So with the first property manager, it was all just a bit vague, and when we started to ask questions about what's going on, how come this is inconsistent, we started to kind of probe a little bit more. They got an attitude with us and from that point on I was out, because if the property managers are getting an attitude, something's going wrong. If they were on the up and up they can easily answer the questions. Yeah, it's one of those things when someone's temper’s starting to get riled up, something is going that they're trying to cover something. So after, I don't know, it was probably a couple of years, we realized that this is not good.
 
Then I had to go on the internet to start searching for another property manager. Well, I found one that I really liked, and they were fantastic, but their staff was on a shoestring. They had one person that would actually go out and do inspections, and you would only get an inspection on your house, maybe once every year or two years. Wow, and that's the other thing I like about Enterprise is that you guys do your quarterly inspections. Granted when I get that paperwork in I know I'm gonna be spending money but, that's the other thing as an investor, you just have to know you're gonna be spending money. You gotta spend money to make money or to have an investment that you can make money on down the road.
 
Listen now to learn more.

Financing Real Estate Investment Property

Part One:
How has COVID-19 impacted real estate both around the country and here in Memphis? We also delve into the potential impact of COVID-19 on the historically high rent prices, and we ask if COVID-19 is the cause for low levels real estate inventory currently available in the marketplace.
 
Chat Neighborhood: “News of the strange but true.”
We bring you funny stories of a man who has flown an American flag for the last 2 years from the balcony of his condo, but the condo association has now asked him to take it down. In another story we will tell you about a person who quit their job and their final paycheck was paid as a wheelbarrow full of pennies, and finally a the antics of a man that was arrested three times in one day.
 
Part Two:
In this interview we talk to Tom Robertson, of Hometown Capital Group here in Memphis, TN, about the financing options he currently has available for investment property purchase. He talks about the current products he has and how he is able to work with investors to provide the financing that they need. Tom can be contacted at 901-552-5530 or online at 901mortgage.com.

CDC eviction moratorium unconstitutional?

In this episode we talk about our Investor Summit and how we all came together in Memphis; a social and learning event allowing investors from all over the country to come together and discuss the Memphis real estate market and to get to know like-minded investors.
 
Has a court ruled the CDC eviction moratorium as unconstitutional?
We discuss this case in Neighborhood Chat.
Our guest on this episode is attorney Mike Mitchell. He joins us to elaborate on the current legal challenges due to COVID, facing landlords and property managers.