Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z

How to deal with problems with your properties? Why did I select self storage? How to get your first deal? Brainstorming exit strategies with your network. This is the talk I had with Beth Azor at her conference Women in Real Estate Investing Summit.Watch this interview here: https://tinyurl.com/mr47yc8pDefine "I learned everything I could about self storage"Educating yourself, reading books, I hired a consultant that I heard speak on a podcast to help me analyze my first few deals. How did you find your first deal?It took me 2 years to find my first deal. I found it on crexi, I didn't have a team calling property owners to find off market deals, and the deal ended up being a portfolio of 3 car washes and a self storage. I didn't even bother asking anyone about car washes, that was mistake number one, and I didn't even go to a conference.How many deals had you looked at before selecting this property?Tons and tons, probably 1,000. It took me two years to find my first deal, I quit my job before finding it, which I don't recommend, you should find your first deal and then quit.Where you worried about money?No, I knew I could always get a job if it didn't work out. Everyone is fully capable of building anything from scratch.What interested you to put an offer in this deal?Car washes have a better cap rate because it's a much more hands on asset class, the numbers made sense.What interested you about self storage?Self storage is recession resistant, it does well in good times and in bad times. In good times people buy more, keep more and don't look at their credit card bills. In bad times, they downsize, they go from a 3 bedroom home to a 2 bedroom home and they need storage, and getting a storage is a lot cheaper than having that bigger home.How do you like owning something outside of your market?I went against my mentor's advice to buy things within a 2 hour driving distance from where you live and, for the car washes I don't like it, for the self storage, it's much easier to manage remotely. How did you pick your lender?You have to ask your local broker for recommendations, the sales broker in this case. The first couple of lenders said no. I kept going back to the broker to get more lender recommendations, and eventually one of them said yes. But 5 days before closing that lender called saying that they were switching the terms a bit, that because I didn't have experience operating a property, they'd like to retain the entire amount of the loan that I had in stock locked for the entire period of the loan. I called the president of the bank and I said, this doesn't make any sense, why would I even get a loan and not pay cash for it if you're locking my cash? We ended up meeting in the middle, putting a much smaller amount on hold for a couple of years, and after I prove myself as a good operator, they will remove that contingency.You were now the owner of three car washes and a self storage, what happened on day 2?Let's go to day 9 when one of the roofs caved! Thank God for Nationwide, they ended up paying within 2-4 weeks. The self storage has been smooth sailing, we have a local person that walks the facility about once a month, the tenants lease the units online. Today about 80% of self storage is still owned my mom and pops, and they're now retiring, they haven't implemented technology in their facilities. You can put cameras if they don't have it, you can install locks that will open with their phones. They are able to rent online, they get a unique code to the gate, you don't have to ever meet your customer.Are all the car washes gone?We're in the process of converting them, you have to keep talking to people and brainstorming ideas until you come up with the right strategy.Beth Azorwww.bethazor.comwww.linkedin.com/in/bethazorSubscribe to the Monte Carlo Investing Club here: www.montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Commercial real estate has been a popular investment asset class for many years due to its ability to generate strong returns and provide diversification benefits to a portfolio. Up until last year, the challenge has been finding value-add opportunities in a highly competitive market, with compressed cap rates. Today, with the increase in interest rates, and a slow down in the economy, we have a different set of challenges, and our focus must shift to how can we make sure that a property is equipped to not only survive, but also thrive in this environment. In this article, we will explore some key considerations for passive investors looking to invest in commercial real estate in our current economy.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/t2ycx99zUnderstand the market dynamicsThe basics are still important: is it a market that is growing, does it have a diverse industry, does it have a low poverty rate, what are the housing statistics such as appreciation over the last decade and average household income? If not in a major market, is it near a major city that has been growing over the last few years? This information can help you make informed investment decisions and avoid making costly mistakes.Define your investment objectivesEvaluate if this is something you are comfortable with. Look at the previous economic downturns: how long did they take to recover? When was a good time to buy? While it’s impossible to predict the perfect timing for anything, we must understand at what discount rate we are comfortable purchasing at, knowing that we will be paying more for the mortgage (at least temporarily). Also remember, the downpayment will be smaller with the current cap rates going up. What do these numbers look like compared to the higher purchasing properties at a low cap rate? How many years of the higher interest rate will it take to get to the entire discount that you received? In some of our calculations it was as high as 50 years.Consider passive investment optionsOne of the benefits of investing in commercial real estate as a passive investor is the ability to invest in a variety of different vehicles. Learn what are the pros and cons of each of these options.Diversify your portfolioDiversification is key to mitigating risk and achieving long-term investment success. Define three assets that are non correlated to each other. For example, real estate and the stock market. Real estate is on a different market swing. It does not trend up and down with the stock market, or energy.Partner with experienced professionalsInvesting in commercial real estate can be complex and challenging, particularly for passive investors. That’s why it’s important to partner with experienced professionals who can help guide you through the investment process. This may include investment advisors, asset managers, and property managers who have deep knowledge and expertise in commercial real estate.When working with a new operator, make sure to find someone in your network that has worked with that person in one capacity or another, and check for references. Do a deep dive on the underwriting of each property, if you’re not sure how to do that, hire someone to go over it with you.Focus on long-term valueCommercial real estate investments are typically long-term in nature, and successful investors focus on creating long-term value. This may involve finding ways to improve the physical condition of the property, increasing rental income, implementing operational efficiencies to reduce costs, or expanding the property. By focusing on creating long-term value, investors can position themselves for strong returns over the life of the investment. Decide what asset classes you are comfortable investing in during this downturn, and take the next step!Subscribe to our investing club here: www.montecarlorei.com/monte-carlo-investing-club--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What are some strategies available for business owners and real estate professionals to decrease their taxes? Tim Gertz, CPA and Partner at Provision Wealth, will be exploring these scenarios with us.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/mrxdyyanFor business owners, including law firms, dentists, etc, what are some tax strategies available?The tax code is created for you. That is the incentive based model that has been created for you as a business owner to create wealth, or to create jobs, and more opportunity for them to tax more people. For business owners, the sky's the limit. In order to take a deduction under the code, it has to be ordinary and necessary for what you're doing. Every business is different, but as long as you can look at your business and make sure that you align your facts with what you're trying to do, you can duck almost everything. There are huge opportunities, we still have bonus depreciation in play. If you buy any equipment, meals, travel, auto expense, home office, it continues to go on.The inflation Reduction Act included huge opportunities for solar, if you have a commercial office building, you can put solar on it, you can get up to a 70% tax credit this year on that. On top of that, if you don't have a tax liability, the IRS has given you an opportunity to sell your tax credits. Not only do you have the opportunity to get a tax credit, but if you can't use it, you can sell it. Secure Act 2.0, which was signed into law in December, as incentives for setting up retirement accounts, where they will pay for the setup of the retirement account. It will be a dollar for dollar credit. When you look at businesses, look at what are you trying to do, and align yourself to what you're trying to accomplish, then everything would be deductible. If you're saying: I want to do this, then what is it that I need to do to make this an ordinary necessary deduction so that I'm aligned with the law, and I'm not doing anything that's in the gray areas, but it's ordinary and necessary, so I can deduct it.For real estate professionals – what are the tax benefits for them? Is this the best profession for tax purposes?It is. There are nuances here and there, a lot of times, I've a lot of people that are active in business A: the husband has a business, he is a dentist for example, and the wife is a real estate professional. That gives us an opportunity.Real estate professionals are huge, especially after 2017 with the advent of bonus depreciation on used assets, now we are able to create this huge loss in real estate that can offset all the income in this business that the other spouse has. Being a real estate professional does open a lot of opportunities. You're investing in an asset class that has been in a storied past of growth and appreciation. It's also a great asset to invest in. It's kind of a double whammy in that regard.The Inflation Reduction Act was huge. Whether you're a business owner, whether you own real estate, whether you're buying an electric car, whatever it might be, talk to someone about it. A client is putting a solar installation on their commercial building, and they're getting about a 90% credit. You're putting a $10 million dollar solar array, and getting a $9 million credit, which you can also sell, and you might be able to sell it for 90 cents on the dollar.Tim Gertzwww.provisionwealth.comcontact@provisionwealth.com--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

How can you reduce your taxes if you are a W-2 employee that is single, or a W-2 employee with a spouse that doesn't work? This is a topic we have been wanting to cover for a while and Tim Gertz, partner at Provision Wealth will share his insights.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/2ckdcd6bTax can be confusing and we all want to reduce our taxes. Let’s break it down into different scenarios, starting with W-2 employees that are high earners and are not married.Some would ask: what's the best tax planning advice for someone that single and a high W-2 earner, the joke is to get married! The tax laws incentivize you to: grow industry to create products, create revenue, create workforce, that can be taxed. Unfortunately, as a W-2 employee, you are in this little box where your opportunities are very minimal.There are still some opportunities such as: oil and gas investing. It can be very advantageous because it is outside of the material participation rules of the passive activity loss rules. You can invest in an oil and gas fund and have no involvement in it and be able to offset W-2 income. It's one of the few carve outs in code section 469 that gives us that opportunity.Another thing with the Inflation Reduction Act, it bumped up tax credits for energy efficiency. It reinstated the 30% tax credit on solar on residential properties. It increased the tax credits for vehicles, used vehicles, various energy efficient systems, whether it's HVAC, or things of that nature. Those are definitely things that you can look at to offset tax on W-2 taxable income.One of the other opportunities if you are an individual that does itemize deductions, an opportunity is called deduction stacking. Especially with charitable contributions. For example, instead of giving $10,000 every year, you  give $20,000 this year, then nothing the next year, then $20,000 the following year, and you flip flop between itemized and standard deductions.What about W-2 employees with a spouse that does not work. What are their options?This scenario opens up a huge opportunity. If the spouse wants to be involved in activities, they can look at:  What is it that they want to do? Do they want to open a business? Do they want to operate a business? Do they want to invest in real estate and become a real estate professional? One of the nice things about being married is that your income is combined, and your income and losses are combined. If you've an individual that's a W-2 high wage earner, and you have a spouse that is a real estate professional, and you invest in real estate that throws off half a million dollars of losses every year. Because they spouse is active in real estate, that loss is active. Now we have an active loss, and we have active income from W-2 that are married to each other, then they will offset each other. It doesn't have to be a real estate professional because that's where a lot of people are investing in. It can be any activity, it can be any business that someone materially participates in. It could be: coin laundry, things of that nature, things that are highly capital intensive, that have a lot of equipment on the upfront that can be depreciated. That can create a loss that will create an active loss. If they're active in it and materially participate in that activity, it will offset the W-2 income.A real estate professional has to:1. Work 750 hours in real estate activities.2. Do that more than any other income producing activity.Tim Gertzwww.provisionwealth.comcontact@provisionwealth.com--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Why is diversification important in your investments? How to find and vet great operators and partners? Patrick Grimes, CEO of Invest on Mainstreet, shares his advice after being in the business for over a decade.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/2m8jh277Why is diversification important? What are the asset classes that you picked to diversify and why have you picked them?Multifamily is the core of our company, we have over a $500 million dollar portfolio now, and we have workforce housing currently in construction. If you look back over the data that suggests recession resilience and long term appreciating assets, you'll see that three bedroom two bathrooms are very strong. Then 80+ units is the next strongest asset class. All existing construction where you can buy for cash flow, income generating, and you're not hoping to build and hoping somebody will pay your premium price, that's the foundation of most of our investors' portfolios. But I have lost everything in real estate once. If you read my passive investor guide on my website, you'll see that it talks about diversifying, it talks about how the middle class has 7-8% of their portfolio in alternative assets. The high income earners are at 25%. Then the ultra wealthy is at 50%. If you want to invest like the high income earners, the ultra wealthy, you've to get out of those 401k's in the stock market, or IRAs in the stock market, or peel some of that off into a self directed variant which allows you to invest. Maybe your financial planner has you in the more stock markets or you're day trading.What is your process for deciding who you partner up with for these different asset classes?Having been somebody that lost at all, having lost at all doesn't mean you're not a good partner. In fact, I just spoke on a stage in Chicago in front of hundreds of people in economics. The question was How to do deals today, and would you do deals in today's economic environment? - everyone said yes for sure. But we were all talking towards how we saw the demand shift in 2009 and 2010. And how we saw the economic models breakdown and the financial systems. We were speaking from a lens of experience of being raked over the coals, and seeing how things fall apart. You're looking at people that made it out, and people that continue, but with better education and knowledge. I think that is part of what I look for in partners, is somebody that has been a little bit like me, and had some really rough times, but came out fighting, and now speaks from a level of understanding and made it through the failure, they didn't just go crawling back to whatever their job was, but fought their way out and now are moving forward.There are a lot of things to look at. But the general items are: are their investments recession resilient? Are they structured in a way like our real estate deal is, does it have six months of reserves so that if a financial disaster or natural disaster storm hits the property, you can ride it out? Are they fixed interest rates? Or are you at risk of losing all your cash flow, or maybe the building, which I know of several dozen now that are in threat of that this year.Patrick Grimeswww.investonmainstreet.comJoin me in Orlando on March 8th! www.bit.ly/3Yf9KYw--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

How to raise $43M in a year? What kinds of non-recourse loans are available? Patrick Grimes, CEO of Invest on Mainstreet, shares his best practices on how he was able to raise millions last year, and how he overcame the hurdles along the way.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/39wmxf8yWhat does the journey to raising $43 million really look like?I started back in 2006, I got some advice to get into real estate and I invested where I thought we're going to double and triple my money every couple of years but 2009, 2010 happened and I lost it all. It've personally guaranteed on pre development residential and raked me over the coals really bad, but a lot of people got hit pretty hard too. I think that one of the reasons why I'm successful today is because I failed early, failed young, fast and hard. It took me a few years to recover my credit, I worked my way up in the corporate world and did some really cool things. I did medical devices, solar cells, EV vehicles, and automation, robotics, one of a kind things. I got a master's in engineering and business, but I knew I needed to get back into real estate. I did it in much lower risk ways: in single family, both in recession resilient markets and assets that made measurable improvement to cash flow. Not inventing something from nothing, or a new development that's betting and hoping on pre-development returns. Reasonable return for a more moderate and recession resilient risk profile portfolio. That led me to a very successful path of grinding away in my career and moonlighting away in my real estate business. Ultimately, it was when my wife finally came around, and I realized that I was not dateable, and I needed to make some changes and focus on family. I make choices so that my future could grow so I stopped doing single family then traded into larger multi-family and apartment buildings, I partnered up, I started that to do large syndications around growth markets and diversify into other recession resilient, and non correlated assets like energy, where you can build safer portfolios.What are some of the best practices that other syndicators may actually benefit from?I came from high tech, when I started working I just kept my head down, underwriting, punching out numbers, and doing a lot of heavy lifting. In early 2020, I was advised, you're doing this the hard way, you've got a network of investors, colleagues that you've built a 15 year relationship with from high tech, but there's a lot of other investors out there and until you get your name out there and you tell your story, and you get out of your hermit hole and out from underneath your rock, nobody is going to know your story, you're not going to be as relatable, people aren't going to be drawn to what you're doing. I wrote a book, it's an Amazon best seller. I write for Forbes, I've written several articles on investing in commercial real estate. A lot of educational things about the trials and tribulations that I had. I started speaking on stages, I am speaking on MFIN on alternative investments, I've done economics and wealth building strategies. And people can relate to that.Patrick GrimesInvest on MainstreetJoin me at the Women's Real Estate Investment Summit on March 8th! www.azoracademy.com/women-s-real-estate-investment-summit-2023--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What is the state of industrial investing today? Are the rising interest rates affecting some properties? What can you do to fix this problem? Chad Griffiths, Partner at NAI Commercial Real Estate, has been working in the space for over a decade and shares his insights.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/yc82y696What is happening in the industrial world today?My overarching investment philosophy, and I try to share this with as many people as possible, because I think it's just the healthiest way to look at real estate, is investing very long term, I would almost like to think that I have an infinite money timeline. There are some properties that I don't ever want to sell, they might go to future generations. Anytime I buy a property, I must be as comfortable owning this property in 10 years, as I am today. That type of mentality smooths out these aberrations that we're going through. I think that this is going to be a painful aberration but I also think this is going to be temporary. I don't see interest rates being able to sustain this high going much past 2023. All the governments that are sitting on so much debt, all the corporations, all the households, by design, they're trying to curb inflation by pulling the interest rate lever, but it's making everything very expensive. And I do think that they'll pull that lever too hard and before we know it, we're going to have recessionary pressure and that comes with political implications. It's very hard to get reelected for a politician if they're in a deep recession. We'll start seeing all sorts of promises coming out this year, whether it's the other side saying, We're going to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. And then the incumbents are going to say, We're going to do the same thing. I think we live largely in a political cycle more than an economic cycle because there are too many people pulling levers to try and get themselves elected. I don't think this is going to be long term in the grand scheme of most of our properties.What would you do if you had a mortgage coming up?I would probably raise money to pay that mortgage for the next couple of years, borrow from whoever you may need to borrow. Even credit cards potentially, there are several credit cards that you do not pay any interest for a year, I would potentially do that. If I believe that the rates are going to be going down. Another idea is start selling, or looking at partnerships. We have to do what we have to do. It’s also part of all the preparation that we all have been talking about over the last five years, that people have been thinking, The recession is around the corner. The people that have not prepared and bought at 4% cap rates with 20% down, that’s not on us because the wise investors have been warning people about this. It takes a 10% vacancy to destroy a deal in a recession. If people do not underwrite for that…they should have done their homework. A lot of people benefited over the last five years, and the ones that kept being super aggressive, you might need to take some money out of the benefit that you got over the last five years and put into these deals that might be suffering for the next couple of years, in my opinion.Chad Griffithswww.youtube.com/@industrializeJoin our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

How to manage an industrial portfolio? How to compensate managers? What are the key things to keep in mind? Chad Griffiths, industrial investor and Partner at NAI Commercial Real Estate, shares his insights.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/mr2ch5x2How do you manage an industrial portfolio?I have a property that we bought two years ago, it's a $3 million building and there’s a single tenant in there, a fortune 1000 tenant that occupies the building of a manufacturing facility. A $3M multi-family building by comparison, has maybe 20 units and it’s much more management intensive. The industrial you have one tenant, the multi-family you have 20. The way our lease is structured is NNN: the tenant is responsible for paying all the operating costs on the property. Instead of them calling us for every little thing that goes wrong, they just fix it. In two years, I’ve been to that property a couple of times, my partner and I self-manage that one. We also have other properties with more tenants, and we have property managers in those ones. Even though it’s a lot easier to manage from a time, energy, focus standpoint, there are times when I think you do want to have a professional property manager.When should you get an onsite manager, and how often do they need to go there?The deciding factor for us is largely down to how complex the situation gets. Even though you’re not dealing with the same amount of tenants, things come up. The scale of having 10 tenants vs one tenant, where you have one point of contact, it’s very easy for us to follow up with a general manager, they take care of most of the things that go wrong. If there was something like an electrical issue, then we get involved and have a contractor come to address it. But it’s just much less time intensive to look after one tenant. The one where we have 10 tenants, there’s smaller tenants, they need a little bit more hand holding, because they might not know how everything works. There’s also a common area, so anytime you’re dealing with tenants having to interact, then you potentially have issues.The tenants pay base or net rent to the landlord, they also pay for the operating level expenses of the property. That’s usually property taxes, building insurance, common area maintenance, landscaping costs, etc, and that’s a budget. When a landlord gives a tenant their numbers in advance at the beginning of the year, the base rent is contractually agreed upon, that could be $10 a square foot for the whole term of the lease, there could be escalations, but that’s already known. Whereas the operating costs, all the landlord can do at the beginning of the year is an estimate. At the end of the year, they have to reconcile all those bills, this is how much we actually paid on all these things, add up how much they paid out of how much they collected, and they either need to give an invoice for any amount that is still owing, or they give a credit or refund back to the tenants. Because that operating cost is collected in advance, when the time comes to reconcile and you either have to send an invoice or send a credit, no tenant will ever complain about getting a check in the mail. But a tenant will not be happy if they get a $10,000 invoice at the end of the year because it was poorly projected at the beginning.Chad Griffithswww.youtube.com/@industrializeJoin our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

How to find a retail deal, negotiate, buy, develop all while dealing with all the curveballs that are thrown at you? Beth Azor, CEO of Azor Advisory Services, has been investing in retail for the last 36 years and shares one particular deal from beginning to end.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/3755w9hdLet's talk about a deal of yours, how did you find it and what happened throughout the deal if you still own it?I'm going to talk about B&B Plaza. I was at a City Commission meeting and they outlawed strip clubs, immediately my brain went to a strip club on Main and Main. It was going to happen 24 months from then. The next morning, I look up the tax rules on the address of the strip club and I found out this 80-year-old couple, I called them and said, I'm calling you about your building where Eden's nightclub is located, last night at the town of Davies commission meeting, they outlawed strip clubs, so 24 months from now, there will not be a strip club there, would you like to sell me your building? They said, no, we don't believe you, we get $10,000 per month in cash from the strip club. I sent them the minutes of the meeting, we started having a dialogue and they were not jumping up and down to sell me the building.The two-year mark comes, the strip club closes, and exactly my prediction happens, four competitors of mine swoop in, they were very aggressive with these people because they didn't understand them, and didn't know them. I got a call from their son. They had been very ill, and that they're definitely going to sell and I'm coming to town to meet five of you. I said okay, can I be the last person? He said yes, my parents really liked you so you have the jump ball. The next day he calls and says if you pay 3.4 million, it's yours. I said done. He says, how fast can you close? I said 24 hours. The reason why I could afford to pay more is because I had great relationships in the market. I had called a friend of mine who had a property across the street and she had just done a renewal for 5,000 square feet with a national company at $50 a square foot. My two shopping centers down the street: one was at $30 and one was $40. The fact that she had $50 rent and it was behind our parcels, was very good market intel. I went through three project managers to build it. After we built it, everything was opened, Starbucks, Blaze Pizza, Select Comfort. A day before Verizon moved in, they told us that there is no RTU's in the building (air conditioner units). My air conditioning guy puts the air conditioning units on the roof, he doesn't pull a permit and he gets caught. I get a call from the city, with whom I have a phenomenal relationship saying you have an illegal vendor on your roof and he doesn't have insurance. I had to pay $27,000 in late fees to Verizon and I had penalties from the city because I tried to do it without a permit for speed purposes. It was a very expensive lesson.My NOI today is $660k, on average $66 a square foot, it's probably worth 12 to 14 million, we paid 3.4 million, the construction was probably another 4 million.Join the Women's Real Estate Investing Summit here: bit.ly/3JaGeiEBeth AzorTwitterInstagram--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What is happening in the flipping world today? How do you prepare as a flipper when the rates are high? How to buy deals with future expectations being low? Elisa Covington, founder and CEO of Transform Real Estate Investments shares her insights.Read this entire interview here: bit.ly/3iq0BgUWhat is happening in the flipping world today?It's interesting that people perceive what's happening in the housing market and the interest rate, that the market is tanking and nobody is buying homes anymore which I find not accurate based on my own experience. I've sold about nine homes this year, three homes at the beginning of the year when the market was really good and then the other six homes after the interest rate started increasing and the market declined.My experience hasn't been that terrible. The houses I flipped actually were able to sell on the market within a week or two. And, in most cases, the sale prices were at my expectation or even above my expectation. I have one home that's been sitting on the market for maybe two months now. Most of my experience has been positive which is contrary to popular belief. There are still a lot of buyers out there and I think the Bay Area market may be a little unique, too, because there's just not a lot of inventory, and even though the interest rates are high, buyers are taking a step back because of the limited inventory, but the supply and demand haven’t really shifted that much. Most agents that I work with, the top real estate agents in the Bay Area market, are still categorizing it as a sellers market.How are you able to buy deals with future expectations being low when it has been very competitive up until now?In this market, selling is harder because buyers are taking a step back because of the higher interest rate and the fear of a recession. Because buyers are taking a step back, it's actually really easy to get a good deal because there's not as much competition as before, especially with my target acquisitions, which are homes that are fixer-uppers that are in very poor condition. In a normal market, some buyers may say, we can afford a remodeled home so we're going to buy a home that's in a poor condition for a little less. And the difference in prices between a remodeled home and a fixer-upper is not as significant in a hot market because there's not much inventory and there's a lot of competition. But when the market is as slow as it is now, buyers are focused on remodeled homes, nicer homes, the fixer-uppers get overlooked, they tend to sit on the market and sell for a much lower price than the homes that have been remodeled. The difference in prices between those two types of homes actually has become more significant.In this market, it is easier to find good deals. That's the beauty of house flipping, we're on both sides of the market. We need to purchase a home to flip it, and then after the flip is done, we have to sell the home so we are both the buyer and the seller. When the market changes, if the market is hot, it's going to make it super easy to sell, you're going to sell for more than you are expecting and you will do fine but when the market is declining.Elisa Covingtoninstagram.com/transformrealestatewww.youtube.com/@TransformRealEstateSubscribe to our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support