Posted on 03/05/2005 8:05:02 AM PST by Willie Green
TRENTON, N.J. -- Many people agonize for months before deciding to buy a house. Jonas P. Lee is more decisive: He often buys several in a day.
This year, the 38-year-old Mr. Lee says he plans to buy more than 1,000 homes for Redbrick Partners LP, a New York firm he runs with the help of an MIT economist to invest in single-family rental property. What millions of mom-and-pop landlords do locally, Redbrick is trying to do on a grander scale.
Mr. Lee, a former Web entrepreneur who grew up in New York's posh Westchester County, doesn't see much value in most suburbs at today's lofty prices. Instead, he is buying in working-class neighborhoods in such cities as Baltimore, Philadelphia and Trenton. Even there, however, he is running into tough competition from people determined to cash in on America's decade-long housing boom.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
also related: National Association of Realtors, showed that nearly one in four U.S. homes bought in 2004 was purchased for investment purposes
source: "Middle Class Drives Soaring Purchases of Second Homes" http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1354649/posts
Real estate is a safe and profitable investment in certain areas only like the east and west coasts. Here in Texas home prices are stagnant and/or depressed.
It all depends on so many factors in so many neighborhoods. Each individual property must be asessed for it's potential and needed repairs, then the neighborhood itself, then the potential renters. And this over several cities. All would depend on the quality of the managers hired. To attempt this on a large scale, especially when it has apparently been tried and failed in the past seems risky to say the least. How can one man oversee such an operation the more it grows? How much of your portfolio would you be tempted to invest in such a outfit?
Also of note in this very interesting article:
Redbrick's first fund, which started with $3 million of equity and has used borrowings to acquire about $10 million of properties,
After reading the article, I think he probably does have a business; he's not shooting for short-term profits turning the houses over but is treating this as a wide-scale rental business with appreciation as a benefit, not a major profit center. However, since he is using a lot of leverage to do this, I think it would prudent to still try to hedge at least some of the $10 million he has borrowed.
who's about to become a two time loser. The final stage of a bubble is investor speculation. As the economy improves and the stock market starts back up, interest rates will go up and housing values will go down.
There are certain losers who get suckered into fads at the peak. You can get rich doing the exact opposite of what they do.
I'm no investment genius, but when the NASDAQ hit 5,000, I moved all my 401k holdings to cash. Didn't lose a dime. I just sensed that fools were rushing in. I even remember top "investment advisors" on TV saying that the NASDAQ, "was going to 10,000!" B.S. an inner voice told me. And I bailed. You're absolutely right. The house speculation fad is for suckers.
It is inefficient to hold real estate for pure equity. The return isn't high enough to justify it and the tax consequences aren't great. When instead debt provides the majority of the capital, you get a combined interest deduction and depreciation allowance close to the overall cash flow. Tax liability is therefore minimal.
An example may illustrate this. Suppose I can borrow at 6, the gross cash flow is 12 percent of the price, and operating expenses take 1/4 to 1/3 of those "sales" (which is going to vary, as I operate - fluctuations in percent rented etc). Depreciation allowed is typically 27 year straight line, call it 3.5%. Let the capital value be a million, and first suppose I use all equity. Then I get -
120,000 cash flow
30-40,000 expenses
80-90,000 net
35,000 depreciation deduction
45-55,000 taxable income
15-20,000 taxes
60,000-75,000 net after tax
Not a high return. And some of that is just return of capital. Now instead I expand to 3 million property value with 2 million in mortage debt at 6%. Same equity as before.
360,000 cash flow
90-120,000 expenses
120,000 debt service
120-150,000 net
105,000 depreciation deduction
15-45,000 taxable income
5-15,000 taxes
105,000-145,000 net after tax
A much more respectable, equity-like 10.5 to 14.5% after tax return. Note that taxes paid barely moved, despite a 3 fold jump in gross. That is because the equity portion of the financing captures all the benefit of the depreciation deduction. Debt is already a tax efficient form of capital (a deductible business expense) without needing to share in the depreciation.
The net and the depreciation should be close, but one should always be paying taxes even when the operating fluctuations go toward the high expenses side of their expected range. More leverage than that and you start running nominal losses, which is tax inefficient and can complicate borrowing.
Public REITs have readier access to capital than private rental companies, so you might think they could afford to run more leveraged operations. In practice, though, they compete with other REITs for conservative investors. Financial stability is highly valued therefore. So they tend to the 1/2 to 2/3rds debt range. While private firms often go higher (to 3/4 e.g. - above 4/5 is known to be distinctly unsound and banks usually won't lend that far).
For what it is worth.
The taxpayer will come to the rescue of course whether it's FDIC or Fannie Mae or huge injections of liquidity that will translate into increased inflation.
I don't own a rental home but i do own a fair amount of geometrical property and routinely can if I desire borrow 80% loan to value on the mortgage from commercial banks.
There are SBA loans out there (which I do not qualify for) that will loan 95% loan to value....but they have strict covenants. It all depends of the appraisal of course.
I also borrow from institutional firms like pensions and insurance companies and they routinely offer 80% loan to value of either the appraisal or verified cost whichever is lowest. They give nice amortizations though...25-35 or even 40 years.
If this guy used 3M in cash to buy 10M in residences, that doesn't seem like too much leveraging to me unless he overpaid. I would bet he is hoping for more property appreciation than a cash flow commercial developer-investor like myself. Equity is nice but you can't eat it. I generally sit at around 55% LTV but will take a temporary spike on an acquisition or new development to even 80% on that particular deal if I think cash flow will rise and decrease the LTV.
I have seen homebuilders and banks do incestuous deals with appraisers where by they routinely over appraise by 10-20% so folks can do no money down home purchases...in fact that is rather common. It is rather uncommon in commercial deals. The only things about REITs I'm familiar with are that they have been decent in the past few years, they often make passes at my properties but then want to do holdbacks and fees at the end...a waste of my time, and that they have to use their rents or pay them out as dividends.
It sounds strange, but the biggest difference I see in trying to do a few fixer-uppers and what Mr. Lee is doing (and I am no real estate expert and I definitely know only what I read in the article about Mr. Lee's business, so take this with a huge grain of salt) is the large scale of his operations. He is going out looking for guys doing this on a small scale and who are struggling. He buys their properties at a very attractive price. I would guess that gets him into properties that don't need to a great deal of work to be rented at a good price. (The example in the story was interesting: he spent $375,000 to buy five houses, which he was going to rent them for $800 to $1200 each, or around $4,000 to $6,000 per month for all 5 at full occupancy. Assuming 75% occupancy, that's at least $3,000 cash flow to service the $375,000 purchase and his initial repair costs (which he is trying to keep low). If he can get money for 6% or less, he can run cash-flow positive even at $3,000 (and then there should be some depreciation to help him also). If he can get better than 75% occupancy or gets more than the minimum rental prices indicated, he should be making a profit.)
He is also probably getting favorable interest rates on the money he borrows considering how the general low interest environment. (If he is a gambling man and has serious sang froid, he might even be able to borrow a lot of short-term money for very favorable rates, but that would be very risky indeed since interest rates are practically guaranteed to go up.)
I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is also some government money somewhere in this mix (for instance HUD section 8), although I don't see any indicated in the article. If he is clever enough to help the occupants into such programs, he might be able to turn a good profit from such since it should help keep his occupancy rates up. (I am not aware of anyone that has tried to do this, and I may be way off base on this one.)
ROTFLMAO....
"geometrical" property....lord have mercy.
I shoulda left JR's spell check alone on that one.
Commercial obviously.
Yep...I own and develop Buckminister Fuller properties only...PIMP.
Often the bank requires private mortgage insurance on anything above 80, to protect themselves against overly aggressive "flippers" (who buy without equity to speak of, and default and give the collateral to the bank if the price doesn't go up, and sell to repay the loan if it does - exploiting the implicit "option" a loan with collateral contains).
On REITs, the rule is they have to pay out 95% of their net income as dividends. But not "their rents". Rents can cover expenses, debt service, and depreciation - as well as contribute to net income. In practice this basically means the ongoing acquisition budget of a REIT is set by its depreciation.
When they want to buy faster than that (which is often), they issue additional securities, whether stock or debt, or borrow further from banks, typically on revolving lines of credit. When they aren't buying actively the depreciation flow pays down the credit lines.
REITs have had quite a run. They were a great play in the late 90s at the end of the bubble, the perfect place to cash out to. They have run up so much recently that just buying them at random these days, you would wind up overpaying. There are better prices in the private market. The best run REITs can still make sense, when the price isn't outrageous. But you have to value them case by case - you can't count on the market keeping their stock price rational, these days.
I wasn't in a position to jump into real estate years ago at the beginning of the boom. I would be now, and every recent "new home owner" is encouraging me to do so. Listening to them reminds me of excuses I heard at Nasdaq 500.. ("It's different this time..," etc. ad nauseum). Articles like this are a further indication that it is almost over.
I'd like to know how to profit from the coming Real Estate bubble burst. Any ideas?
I've been biding my time, knowing full well that I spot coming trends too early, which hurts me. I'm ready to start averaging into some type of bet against real estate.
Short of interest rates and REITS (which I don't believe are single family housing focused), I haven't a clue on the best pure play investment. How can I "short" housing?
What's your occupation?
You seem quite knowledgable about REITs.
I bought a Wal Mart outparcel from one (Atlanta based) last year. They were later indicted for funny stuff.
He who sells what his isn't ends up broke or in prison.
looking to profit from bad times is inherently riskier that making a play for the upside.
you could always short the big homebuilders like Pulte or American Home I suppose....or do the appropriate options (calls?)on them.
I gotta admit you had me confused on that one above...
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