El Paso Investors Club

BY BRAD BECKETT ON JUNE 5, 2019

“I don’t want to make more money — said no one, ever”...That’s the gist of a recent Realtor.com article that took a close look at eight common investments (three are related to housing) and how well they’ve been doing over the last five years.  They zeroed-in on the highest and lowest one-year, three-year, and five-year returns to provide a snapshot of how various money-making opportunities are performing.

The eight common investments are:

• Home Price Appreciation
• REITs
• Bitcoin
• Stocks
• Mutual Funds
• Bonds
• Home Flipping
• Single-Family Rentals

                                                                                                                               

“Make sure you have reserves for repairs beyond what you plan and expect for,” says Charles Tassell, a Cincinnati-based landlord, flipper, and chief operating officer of the National Real Estate Investors Association. “You never know what you’re going to find when you open up a wall.”

Click here to read the full story at Realtor.com.

BY BRAD BECKETT ON JUNE 4, 2019

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in April was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,298.5 billion, which was nearly the same as March’s revised rate.  Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $499.3 billion in April, 0.6% below March’s revised estimate.

Click here to read the full report at Census.gov.

BY BRAD BECKETT ON JUNE 4, 2019

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units in June was $1,087 with two-bedroom units coming in at $1,354.  ABODO uses over 1 million listings across the United States to calculate the median 1-bedroom rent price by city, state, and nation and then track the month-over-month percentage change. To avoid small sample sizes, they restrict their analysis to cities meeting minimum population and property count thresholds.  Be sure to check out their extensive city list.

“Both one and two-bedroom units are movin’ on up with two-bedroom units rising by over 2 percent in June. Let’s get into it and discuss this accelerating nationwide trend.”

Click here to read the full report at Abodo.com.

BY BRAD BECKETT ON JUNE 3, 2019

There’s a new side-hustle for the side-hustlers driving for Uber; bird-dogging for real estate investors.  Realtor.com says that house flippers are paying Uber drivers(during their down time) as their eyes and ears to take pictures of potential flips.  One company they cited pays up to $1,500 per referral that leads to a purchase and some are even paying for good leads.

“It’s a great way to be able to reach areas that I can’t drive around town all day,” said Scott Sekulow, who runs a HomeVestors franchise in Atlanta that has hired several drivers. “You don’t need a lot to know the house needs repairs.”

Click here to read the report at Reator.com.

BY BRAD BECKETT ON MAY 30, 2019

According to the latest CoreLogic Single-Family Rental Index (SFRI), single-family rents increased 2.9% year over year in March.  Their index measures rent changes among single-family rental homes, including condominiums, using a repeat-rent analysis to measure the same rental properties over time. Interestingly, CoreLogic pointed out that single-family rents climbed steadily starting in 2010, and annual rent increases have stabilized, fluctuating between 2.7% and 3.1% for the past 12 months.

Key findings:

• Rents for lower-priced homes increased faster than those of higher-price homes.
• Phoenix had the largest annual rent increase of the 20 analyzed metro areas in March.
• Houston and Miami had the largest deceleration in rent growth in March.

Click here to read the full report at CoreLogic.com.

BY TED THURN ON MAY 29, 2019

Rent control is often considered by some state and local government officials as a means to create more affordable housing by limiting the amount a property owner can charge for renting out a home, apartment, or other type of real estate. As rental rates rise, demand for apartments increases and Americans see a larger portion of their income go to paying rent. As policymakers search for answers to combat this growing problem, one of the first solutions they consider is rent control.

Over the last few years, property managers and owners have addressed rent control legislation in their respective states. Rent control (also known as rent stabilization) is a government-enforced price control measure limiting the price of rents that property owners may charge for rental housing.

The theory behind rent control is to allow certain tenants to reside in an area that may otherwise be out of reach. With rent control, the rent charged to a tenant who lives in qualified housing is strictly regulated, with a maximum placed on the amount the landlord may charge the tenant. Therefore, rent control is effectively a price ceiling imposed by the governing entity.

During the 2019 legislative session, several states introduced bills to establish rent control; Oregon and Illinois are two of those states. At first glance rent control appears to be a quick fix to provide instant housing affordability. However, a closer examination shows the many negative, unintended consequences of rent control that can result in a significant reduction of affordable rental housing, along with other problems.

Ted Thurn is director of government affairs for the Institute of Real Estate Management

BY BRAD BECKETT ON MAY 29, 2019

According to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, the rate of home price increases reported a 3.7% annual gain in March, down from 3.9% in February.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 2.3% and the 20-City Composite posted a 2.7% year-over-year gain.  The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are one of the leading measures of U.S. residential real estate prices, tracking changes in the value of residential real estate both nationally as well as in 20 metropolitan regions.

Click here to read the full report at S&P Dow Jones Indices.