
Here are some of the basic ideas that I picked up around the Multi-Family RE Investor Meeting:
- Be patient.
- Be persistent, persist & learn from failure.
- Don't ever give up, continue to make offers.
- Rehab A & B Type properties to the max.
- Mindset is key, one of the biggest ingredients to success.
- Create systems for yourself & your business & stick to them.
- Network with people who have the experience.
- Don't listen to people who are negative, pessimistic, or have less experience than you.
There seemed to be a consensus around the table stating that if you are going to do anything in multi-family real estate, do 50 units or above for a number of reasons.
To begin with, apparently, the underwriting process is much smoother with bigger deals. The smaller deals (4-49 units) look too much like residential to commercial lenders, and they look too much like commercial to residential lenders. Apparently the "bigger money" (above 5-10 million dollars) is easier to get, and it is much looser.
Also, on another note, it's going to be essentially as easy to hire a great property manager on a 36 unit building as it would to hire one one a 1000 unit property. It is better to overpay a great property manager, than to underpay a bad one.
"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -Abraham Lincoln
Work on your business, not in it. Meaning spend more times working on the systems and hiring the people who will implement them, than doing the actual work yourself (i.e. hire a competent RE CPA instead of trying to do all the bills and taxes on your own). It's too easy to get sucked into the day to day details of the operation, so learn how to delegate properly (property management, bookkeeping, etc).
"Business and investing are team sports."- Robert Kiyosaki
Since Real Estate Investing is a team sport, surround yourself with the best people in their respective areas...Realtors, engineers, attorneys, tax advisers, lenders, etc... The goal is to be the "dumbest guy" on your team. If you are the smartest guy on your investment team, than something is wrong.
Books that were recommended during this meeting: