Banks Cut Credit, Is The Market “Recession” Really OVER?

Dave:
Hey, what’s going on everyone? Welcome to On the Market. I’m your host Dave Meyer, and we got the full gang back together. We have Kathy, James, Henry, and Jamil all joining us today. I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve all been recording together. It’s good to see you all.

Kathy:
Likewise.

James:
Family’s back together.

Kathy:
And James is so much older.

James:
I am, and not any wiser.

Dave:
I know, we did record yesterday on his actual birthday and I thought about singing to him on the podcast, but then I got very self-conscious and didn’t do it.

Kathy:
There’s still a chance.

James:
Yeah, I’m waiting for it. Kathy, you have an album, you should sing.

Kathy:
That’s true. That’s true. Oh man, the word is out now.

Dave:
All right, well we won’t make you all sing, but James, happy birthday from everyone. We did record yesterday so there’s lots of happy birthday episodes for you, but you deserve all of them.

James:
I appreciate it.

Dave:
Today for our episode, we are going to be going over some real estate headlines. We’ve got four excellent stories for you. We’re going to be talking about the housing recession and whether or not it’s over. Credit standards and how they are tightening up and what that means for real estate investors. We’ll be talking about whether you’re selling a property, how to ensure you’re not getting low ball offers, and we’ll talk about 15 cities that are well poised for stable growth and are likely to maintain their value over the next couple of years. So stick around after the break and we’ll get into these topics.
For our first story, we are talking, of course, about the housing recession. If you listen to this show, we talk about this topic quite a lot, what’s going on with housing prices. But just in the last couple of months we’ve seen a pretty important shift in housing price trends. They were year-over-year down, just slightly, it wasn’t anything too serious, but we are reaching a point by most standards, everyone’s data is a little bit different, saying that we are now basically at parity with last year, it’s about flat. So the question this article is talking about, NAR’s survey that is indicating that the housing recession may be over, this maybe was perhaps the shortest ever housing correction and now we are poised for future growth. So Henry, let’s start with you. Do you think the housing recession is over and none of you’re allowed to say, “It depends on the market”,. I know you’re about to, we’re talking about on a national basis here.

Kathy:
He almost said it, it was coming out of his mouth.

Dave:
I know, I could see it. I could read his lips starting to say, “In Arkansas, everything’s amazing and all of you idiots should just move to Arkansas.”

Kathy:
No recession there.

Dave:
But sympathize with the rest of us, Henry, and tell us what’s going on on a national level.

Henry:
Oh man. Look, I think we’re seeing kind of what we’ve all talked about. It’s, we’re really starting to feel this lack of inventory, and with the lack of inventory and people just understanding, interest rates are somewhere between six and eight and they’re comfortable with it. The reasons people move aren’t always financial. Their lifestyle, their life, their jobs are changing or they’re wanting to change their jobs because they’re wanting to make more money. There’s lots of job hopping in order to increase your salary, and that may require a move, whether in your town or outside of your town. There’s people moving for relationships and life is starting to happen. People need to buy homes, there’s no homes to buy, because we’ve talked about the lock-in effect, people that have low interest rates don’t want to sell and there’s not a lot of inventory.
And so, you’re starting to see that people are fighting for the inventory that is out there. So you’re seeing multiple offer situations again, we’re getting multiple offers on pretty much everything we list. That’s good. The things that we list that aren’t that good or that are, because we’ll hold tail properties, so we’ll buy properties, we’ll just clean them out and we’ll stick them back on the market so they’re not renovated. Those take longer to sell. So, I think you’re seeing a healthy market. And so that’s what should happen, right? If you list a piece of crap, it should take longer to sell than something that’s done correctly. Those should get multiple offers and sell fast. So, is there a session over? Man, I think so, especially if interest rates don’t go up again. If they start to show signs of declining, I think you’re going to see a rush to buy what’s out there and then you’re going to see even more offers.

Dave:
Kathy, I’m curious what you think. We had a show with Kathy, J. Scott and Scott Trench the other day and I got a preview of what Kathy thinks is going on here, but we’d like to hear your thoughts on this and whether you think we’re out of the woods in terms of price corrections.

Kathy:
Well, to use the quote from Logan Mohtashami, “We are in a savagely unhealthy housing market.” So, kind of like Henry said, maybe going back to a market where you actually have to try to sell something and it needs to look good. It’s really hard for an agent right now, you’ve got to price it right.

Henry:
You have to work.

Kathy:
Yeah. Well again, it was only 18 months ago or so, you could just stick a sign outside and the property would sell no matter what condition. So, it’s healthier in the sense that the seller actually has to provide a quality home, in most cases to put it on the open market, not the investor market so much. And buyers get to take the time to investigate the property. Again, 18 months ago you couldn’t even get inspections in some cases, you just had to buy as is and take what you got because there was a hundred people waiting for it in a lot of cities.
So in this sense, it’s more healthy for the buyer, they have more time to look at what they’re buying. But the savagely unhealthy part, is that with interest rates high and with prices high, it’s still selling, properties are still selling because there’s just no other options, except for new homes. And that’s why builders are kind of stoked right now. Builder confidence is up because their stuff is selling. Builder sales are up 20%, while existing home sales are down 20% because that’s what’s for sale. Rich and I just closed on a brand new duplex in the Palm Coast, we got a 4.75 interest rate because we could negotiate that with the builder because there was room for them to negotiate, and it cash flows great. And this is what I think is an opportunity, is for builders and people wanting to buy new homes because that’s available.

Dave:
James or Jamil, do either of you think that this is incorrect, that there is potential for more price slides in the next couple of months?

James:
It really comes down to whether they break that labor market or not. Everyone I think is looking at interest rates all the time. They’re like, “If the interest rates go down and housing’s going to go nuts.” But there is so many other outside factors that you have to keep your eyes on. What’s going on with the labor market, what’s going on with unemployment, is that softening? And if it’s not, they could continue to raise these rates up.
And what this article kind of predicts is, it’s being very positive and aggressive, and I hope it goes with that way. It says there could be as little as, the rates could go down to about 6.5 by the end of the year, 6% in 2024. We’re at rates around seven to 7.5 right now for buyers that are buying and the market is still moving and staying steady. So, it makes sense that the market would rebound, if the rate comes down roughly a point, that’s 10% more affordable for that next consumer. And so, I do think if the rates come down, it’s going to continue to be fine because of the lack of inventory. But you have to keep your eye… You can’t just look at interest rates, you got to look at everything that’s going on in the world. Because if we go into some sort of global recession, which could happen, that’s where I think the housing market will come down. I actually don’t think it’s going to be much about rates anymore.

Jamil:
Yeah James, that’s a great point. The other thing that I think we need to pay attention to, is just how much cash, how many homes are actually being bought with cash and how much investor activity is still in the market. That is still a part of what’s propping things up right now. I can tell you just based off of what we’re doing in our business, there is a tremendous amount of investor activity still there, gobbling up inventory. And what happens if all of a sudden we have investors starting to list their properties or put more of this inventory on the market?
Or on the other side of that, what if people say, “Okay, you know what? The rates have come down just enough for us to kind of overcome this lock-in effect.” And then all the people that have been sitting on this property and all this inventory because they said, “Well, I’m not going to sell, my rate’s too low.” Now they change their mind and we get that inventory in the market, I think that that could create some pricing situations as well. So, I don’t think we’re out of the woods quite yet because I think we don’t have all the variables figured out and we don’t know how people are going to operate when we do have slightly more normal situations.

Dave:
I’m sort of with you Jamil. I’m not saying that prices are going to go down, but I do think declaring the housing recession over is a little preemptive at this point. There’s a lot of evidence right now that mortgage rates are going to stay higher a little bit longer. We’re recording this in early August. The Fitch just downgraded the US’ credit, which sent bond yields up, which will send mortgage rates up over the next couple of days. The Fed has indicated that they plan to keep rates higher for longer and I have no reason to not believe them.
And so, I think that there is evidence that some things we might, after the summer busy selling season see a slight dip in home prices. Don’t think it would be dramatic, but I don’t think we have enough information, like you said, Jamil, to say that the housing recession is over. I would personally still exercise some caution or at least that’s how I’m proceeding.
For our second story the headline is, “Fed says US banks tightened credit further in the wake of failures.” So, the Fed issued this report and basically said that after, everyone knows what happened with the banking crisis, that the banks basically raised their standards to avoid risk of insolvency like we saw with a couple of banks, most notably Silicon Valley Bank, there was weak demand for loans. And basically, they’re saying that banks have increased their standards and now it is about 50% more difficult, credit has tightened by about 50%, particularly on commercial and industrial loans. So, I’m curious, James, let’s start with you here. What do you believe the impact of this is on the already risky looking commercial sector?

James:
I feel like this is something that’s been talked about for about six months now, that this has been coming that way. And it shouldn’t really be a surprise, as there’s still a lot of vacancy rates in the commercial sector, industrial was overbought, kind of like self storage. And the banks feel like it’s risky, so they’re going to tighten their requirements. That makes sense. They’re going, “Hey, this doesn’t look really good.”, and plus the cost of money’s a lot higher to cover the debt coverage on this.
And so, I think this is going to continue to be tightened and I don’t think it’s just in the industrial. This article referenced a lot commercial and industrial and they’re saying that it’s down 50% for demand. But that makes sense, there’s not a lot of transactions going on in that space, office, industrial, I’m just not seeing those deals in our local market going down. We are still seeing multifamily and they’re not being quite as strict with that commercial lending, we just locked in some fairly good rates. But they really wanted… These banks are most concerned with debt coverage ratios. They’re not as concerned about loan to values, they’re not concerned about equity in the deal. They want to make sure that the asset can pay for itself and they don’t believe that office is going to do that. And so, I think it’s going to be really hard to get money over the next 12 to 24 months. There’s going to need to be a lot more owner financing in that space for transactions to pick back up. And I do not see it coming around for at least one to two years.
And if you’re an investor and you have to go out and shop banks right now. We are talking to so many local banks and talking about moving deposits over, how do we get more lines of credit with them? I had a bank on a duplex right now and they want 40% down and I’m buying at 25% below market, that doesn’t make any sense on a loan to value. They were concerned more about the debt coverage. And so, we offered to move some deposits over, and all of a sudden instead of 40% down, they’re down to 25%. So it’s just, they are looking at all the collateral, they want to make sure they protect it. And it’s just important for investors right now to shop the banks, go talk to them, who’s got demand, who needs deposits, use your deposits, get some friends on your team and you’ll be able to get access to money. But in the short term, I don’t see commercial lending moving very much in the next 12 to 18 months.

Jamil:
Yeah, I wanted to add to that. I think James nailed it. And the key that I think is really going to drive the market or at least reinvigorate it, is people shifting their mindsets to more creative situations and solutions. Owner financing, I think, if sellers that really want to get out of their situation, if they can offer these owner finance opportunities to people, we could start seeing new investors or people coming to the table and saying, “Look, I would take this on, I would take this project on. I would look at this asset, but it has to make sense.” And like James is saying as well, you’re getting creative with the banks, you’re moving deposits over, you’re creating the ideal situation for either the lender or the ideal situation for you as the particular buyer with an owner finance situation. But the creativity is the key. The more creative that people are going to get in that type of asset, the more deal volume will happen. But it’s not until people step out of the normal box of thinking that that’s going to actually transpire.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s a good point. And I get that being creative makes sense, but it just feels like the other thing holding this up is that we keep hearing that the commercial asset class is going to crash. And cap rates have gone up, prices are coming down a little bit, but I feel like that’s the other thing that’s just locking this up, is like everyone’s sort of waiting for this impending implosion that I personally still think is going to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet. So Kathy, I was curious what you think about this.

Kathy:
Well, I think the Fed is rejoicing at this news. This is exactly what they’re trying to create. This is what happens in a tightening cycle, when the Fed is trying to slow things down, pull money back out of the system. That happens by lending less. And we know that, again, like 18 months ago, banks were doing crazy stuff. People were underwriting insanely and somehow banks were accepting that and that has changed.
So, oftentimes when there’s an overcorrection that happens when banks get a little too lenient and, ouch, they pay the price for that, then they tighten up and that’s what they’re doing. Would you be lending on a commercial property right now without a huge down payment? It would have to be 50% LTV, like many are requiring because we don’t know where the bottom is in commercial real estate. So it’s extremely risky. There’s a massive overcorrection happening because the banks were too lenient just not that long ago. So they’re paying the price. But the question is, how do banks survive when they’re not doing business? If they’re not lending, that’s a problem. So, we’re going to see more issues because of that.

Henry:
I totally agree. I think James hit it on the nose. Banks are businesses, guys. They provide a service and that service is typically lending money, they need to lend to stay in business. And so, you have to figure out the, “What’s in it for me?”, for your bank’s side. If you want your bank to lend, they’re tightening, they’re not not lending, they’re tightening. It just means that for things that they’re uncomfortable with, they’re going to want you to have more skin in the game with them. For things that they’re more comfortable with, they’re more likely to require less skin in the game for you because they’re comfortable with that asset class.
And so, you’ve got to find the local bank that likes the kind of real estate investing that you do and build that relationship. And tightening just means they want you to really come with a good deal, they want you to be a really good real estate investor. And so, if you’re strong in a particular niche and you find the bank that’s comfortable with that niche, I think you can find favorable lending. It’s just going to take work. You just can’t call the bank, any bank that you want and get the favorable terms like you could a year ago for certain assets, it’s going to take work. Sometimes you’ve got to call 20, 30 banks and talk to them about what you’re doing before you can find the one that is willing to lend at the rates and terms that you’re looking for.
So yeah, they’re tightening, it’s going to be harder to find the money, but the money’s still out there. And then, I think what James really hit on the head is, they need to stay in business and so they want your deposits. And so if you can find the, “What’s in it for them?”, and bring them your deposits, you can really still negotiate good terms for certain assets. Again, a riskier asset, more skin in the game, less risky asset, less skin in the game. And if you bring them deposits, even better. It’s not the end of the world.

Dave:
Well, not all of us have deposits the size of yours and James’. I don’t know if they’d be as impressed with mine and willing to write me loans.

James:
But it’s all relative, depending on your market, they’re looking for a percentage of what they’re lending to you. So, if you’re in a $200,000 market, you need to move like 40,000. If you can move 40,000 extra deposit or something over there, because they getting their down payment and then they’re hanging on to 20% of your money too, so that’s why they feel good about it and they can re-lend it out. So, you don’t need a ton of money to shop it out, it depends on the market. Now if you’re in Seattle, yeah, you’re going to need to move some money over, it’s expensive, or same in LA, but it’s more about the percentage than the size.

Henry:
Yeah, I’m in Arkansas, I can give them five bucks, we’re good.

Dave:
All right. For our third story the headline is, “Real Estate Experts, Five Reasons You’re Getting Low Ball Offers and How to Fix This.” I can see James grinning ear to ear, he’s ready to talk about this one. James, I’m just going to let you start.

Kathy:
He looks kind of mad about it too.

Dave:
Yeah, he’s ready to fight.

James:
I know Jamil can relate with me, when people are like, “Oh, you’re such a low baller.” It’s such a rude thing to call someone, to be honest. It’s like, no, we’re not low ballers, we’re actually offering you market value for the asset’s condition. And so, I think it is important to know about all these people that use that term low baller. No, you’re just priced wrong. You’re not low balling someone if you can provide statistical data to back up your offer amount. And I think that’s really important for wholesalers, investors to know. We write offers based on market value, as is. And we don’t care what… The future market value is the upside to the investor, that has nothing to do with what the owner owns right now, we are buying on the now.
And so, when people call me a low baller, we just make sure that we always submit three to five comps showing that we are in the range of what it is for a true net to a seller. But I really liked this article.,They kind of called it out ’cause they were like, “Hey seller, if you’re getting a ton of low offers, maybe it’s you, not them.” And that’s what it comes down to. If you want to sell your property for the market value today, you need to have it presentable. People will buy stuff that is good product. But if you’re in the middle, you’re going to get in the middle pricing. If you need work, you’re going to get need work pricing. And it’s up to the seller to make those changes to change how that’s going to sell. And if they don’t want to make those changes, they have to reduce price. That is just how this business works.
And I really liked the article. It highlighted a lot of things, presenting your property, you got to work for it. Really understand what you have and what’s selling. And if you have those things, you’re going to price it accordingly and you won’t get the low balls, you’re just going to get a transaction. And so, I think just really look at what you have. If it’s not selling, look at what you have, and maybe it’s just a pricing and a price point thing and you leave it alone and you just go, “Hey, this kind of inventory takes longer to sell, so I’m going to sit on that.” But if things are transacting around you and it’s not, it’s usually a product issue.

Jamil:
I’m going to double down on this, because James, you and I, and Henry… Kathy’s the only one who buys sparkly properties because she loves the new stuff and I think it’s great. We don’t, we trade in stuff that needs to be repositioned, have value added to it. Here’s the thing that I think is really important. So, let’s look at real estate agents. They’re a fiduciary, which means that they have an obligation to tell their sellers the truth. They have an obligation to act in the best interest of their client. And that means being honest with them to say to them, “Listen. Look, I don’t care what the neighbor sold for, they spent a $100,000 in that house fixing it up, you’re not going to get that money. You still got 1970 Shea carpet in here and you have an Electrolux fridge, it’s not going to work. Here’s what it is, we’ve got options, okay? Option number one, you spend money, you fix this house, I’ll get you what Dave sold for across the street. You don’t want to spend money and do that, I’ll get you a cash offer from an investor who will spend the money and do it.”
But let’s be honest with people. The fact is, is that when you’re at a listing appointment and you’re lying to your client just to get that agreement signed so that you can waste six months of their time, so that while the house sits on the market and they think you did a bad job, and then they think when investor offers come in that they’re low balls because you were dishonest with them about the actual value of the property. That’s problematic to me.

Dave:
I love this. We should talk about this all the time, this is the type of energy we need.

James:
I love it.

Dave:
Dude, get that man a water bottle on the towel, he just [inaudible]did a full round in the ring.

James:
You just made my birthday.

Dave:
We need to fan him off a little bit. All right, Henry?

Henry:
This article says to me, this is real estate, this is how it works. You have to sell something at the value that it is. You can’t expect to get more money for something that’s not worth that. But people are still in the 2020 to 2022 bubble in their heads where they’re like, “I can just throw this out there and somebody’s going to come give me everything I want.” And it’s not like that anymore. Again, this is modeling more of a healthy market. Which means, if you want something to sell, you need to position it to sell for the value that it’s worth. So, we’re going to come and we’re going to offer you what we think the property is worth in its current condition. Period. End of story. If you want to get more money, you have to put money into the property, you have to make the property look good.
For me, everything that I list right now, if I’m selling a property and I have done a great job remodeling that property and I’ve paid attention to the details. Because again, before you could just put lipstick on a pig and throw it out there, but now people are walking through your remodel and they’re going, “I see that they put paint on the walls, but they didn’t replace all the outlets, that leads me to believe there might be some problem that they didn’t go fix. And so, I’m not going to give a full price offer or I’m not going to offer at all.” It’s forcing us as investors who are fixing and flipping properties to do it properly, pay attention to the details, do the little things before you stick a property on the market if you want to get top dollar.
The same thing goes for the homeowners who are selling their property. You’ve got to pay attention to the details. You want the top dollar, then you need to show people that the property is taken care of and cared for and it needs to be positioned properly. It’s what should happen when you’re selling a property. This to me says, this is real estate.

Dave:
I feel like we struck a nerve here. This is something we should be maybe talking about more. And maybe what I should do is also read the article and say what it says just so everyone knows, because it did say there were five reasons you’re getting low ball offers. And it basically agrees with what the three of you just said. So the first one was, your expectations might exceed the realities of the market. Basically, you have unrealistic expectations. Number two, you can’t list fixer uppers at turnkey prices. That’s exactly right. Number three, poor aesthetics repel buyers even if the house is structurally sound. Have you ever walked into a house and have someone just say, “It’s structurally sound, don’t worry about everything else that’s ugly. We got a great foundation, it’s totally fine.” Number four, your home is only as good as its presentation. I think that’s more about staging it, making it look good. And then last, financial straits attract the wrong kind of attention. So basically, if you’re in financial trouble and you telegraph that, it’s probably not going to work out great for you. So, I think that’s all good advice brought in with a lot of passion from these three. Kathy, do you have anything to add?

Kathy:
Oh, just that really, this is an agent problem in my opinion. An agent should really know the value and be able to explain to the seller, “You could put this much money into it and you’ll get this much more.” Or, “If you put this much money, it’s not really going to pan out, sell it where it is.” So, I think a lot of new agents came into the market, don’t know what they’re doing, aren’t used to this kind of market, they’re used to the market where they didn’t have to do anything. They have to work harder, they have to really show their value today.

James:
And they’re eating chicken bones right now, there’s not a lot to sell.

Jamil:
True. But James, there’s a fundamental situation in the education process of licensing. Every person that I’ve talked to in all 50 states that go through licensing, I’ve asked them all the same question, “Did they teach you how to comp?” “No.”

Henry:
Here we go.

Dave:
Is that a truth?

James:
That’s true.

Dave:
They don’t teach you how to comp?

Jamil:
That’s true. “They didn’t teach you how to comp properties when you got your real estate license?” “No, they didn’t.” “Oh, wow. So you have no idea how to find value yet you have a fiduciary duty to be responsible to a client, and they haven’t taught you how to value property yet.” That’s where the problem is.

James:
I a 100% agree. And then, a lot of brokers have came in the last three years. It’s a different market. The rules of just listing whatever you wanted and selling was a rule and you could do that. That now we’re back down to basic fundamental real estate.

Kathy:
And for the record, for the record, our fund, our single family rental fund buys old ugly properties and fixes them up. But me personally, I like the fancy stuff.

Henry:
Oh, so you’ll do it in your fun, but you won’t do it yourself. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. All right, sounds good.

Dave:
Do as she says, not as she does. I feel like that’s a theme with Kathy recently. She’s always like, “You all should do this, but I’m doing something totally different.”

Kathy:
No, no, no, no. Well, it’s my… What I would buy the same thing in Dallas. It’s just what is for sale, there’s nothing new in the areas that we want to be buying in. So, we’re buying old and making it new.

Dave:
Awesome.

Kathy:
I was just showing my diversification, that’s all.

Dave:
All right. For our last article, we have a story from gobankrates.com. It’s titled, “These 15 cities are poised for the most stable growth and are likely to keep their value.” Kathy, I think there is a market that you’re particularly interested in that’s not mentioned on the show very frequently that was on here. Which of these 15 were your favorite?

Kathy:
Oh, are you talking about Fackerville?

Dave:
No, no one wants to talk about Fackerville, although you do. No, you were supposed to steal Henry’s market from him.

Kathy:
Oh, how could I forget?

Dave:
Before the show we were reading this and I was telling, one of the markets is Fayetteville, which is obviously in Henry’s backyard.

Kathy:
No, no, I’m taking it.

Dave:
I was telling Henry he can’t pick it, so-

Kathy:
He can’t pick it, it’s mine.

Dave:
… Kathy, you pick it.

Kathy:
Yeah, I’m going to go to Fayetteville and I’m going to find Henry and have him find me a deal. How’s that?

Henry:
Come on.

Kathy:
That’s how I would invest there.

Dave:
All right. That’s perfect. Well, these 15 markets, basically the way that GOBankRates is evaluating these are the one month and three month forecasted home value change. Then they forecasted year-over-year. So one month, three month and year-over-year, and then the average of the three. I’m just going to be honest, I think that’s a terrible way to evaluate how to buy real estate, is just look at a one-month outlook. But do you like any of these markets? Now that I’ve spoiled the whole article, do any of you like any of these 15 markets?

James:
I do.

Jamil:
The one thing that I do like, Dave, is the fact that we’ve got multiple Georgia markets in there, and I think that that’s a good signal that there’s a healthy situation happening in that state. There’s people coming from the major metro of Atlanta moving into those smaller regions. And I think that it just shows that there’s a lot of migration and a lot of strength in that state. So for me, that’s where I’d be placing my bets, in those secondary and tertiary markets in Georgia. I think that there’s something really interesting going on over there.

Dave:
Nice. I like that. James, doesn’t your wife one of these markets?

James:
So randomly, my wife brought it up to me very recently to move to Wilmington, North Carolina, which is a population of like 125,000. Quality of life is amazing there, and the pricing is substantially cheaper. It’s kind of like a Naples, Florida, Newport Beach, but a fraction of the price. Good schools, good quality living, high income, and the market’s doing very well, there’s not a whole lot on there. The median home price is lower, and so that is a market I do think is strong, because I’ve been now digging into it and it’s a really cool place to live. But one thing I wanted to point out in this article, besides that place, Wilmington is awesome. Did anyone else have a problem with some of these cities? Because Coeur d’Alene getting ranked number two on there-

Kathy:
Yeah.

Dave:
Oh-

James:
… I was like, “What is going…”

Dave:
… no way. Yeah, anything in Idaho should be banished right now.

James:
And it’s a secondary home market, it was a population of 60,000 people, the rates are through the roof. There’s massive construction plats coming out in Coeur d’Alene right now, a ton of units are coming to market and they’re put that as the number two most stable. I had a serious problem with that, because they referenced… It’s in the middle of nowhere, next to the Washington border and it’s expensive, and there’s a ton of product coming to market. I do not think that’s a strong market overall.

Kathy:
I was pretty surprised to see it on there, but it also seems to be a place that a lot of wealthy people are talking about. So, we do know that we have kind of a bifurcated market where people with wealth seem to be creating more wealth, even in this environment and Coeur d’Alene is where they’re buying. So who knows, maybe because it’s getting more popular that it will stay stable.
But I agree with you, that if we’re looking to invest and we’re talking about investment, not second home, some of those Georgia markets, they make a lot of sense where we’ve been investing in those areas for a long time. Because again, anytime you’re near a big metro, growth tends to go out into the suburbs always anyway, in any market, people are always chasing affordability. That’s how it always is. So those tertiary markets just outside of big markets where jobs are also starting to move, that’s always a good plan. I also saw Portland, Maine. I was wondering about that, Dave, because you were just in Maine and my daughter was just there very close to where you were married at the same time, she was chasing you, I think. Maybe she was taking pictures, I don’t know, paparazzi.

Dave:
Well, I think I told you guys, we did have a wedding crasher at our wedding, two of them-

Kathy:
It wasn’t Krista, but she wanted to.

Dave:
… Okay. I would recognize Krista, and she would’ve been invited. But yeah, I was just spent a couple weeks in Maine and I really liked it. I honestly don’t know enough about the financials of the city and the economy, but the quality of life is great. Super nice people, really community feel, even for, I mean, it’s not a large city, but this tertiary city. Really nice old housing stock and incredible lobster rolls. I was eating two to three lobster rolls per day minimum and I was thrilled about it. So, I think based on that alone, I would consider investing in Portland, but I don’t know enough about it, honestly.

Henry:
Well, since Dave clipped my wings and wouldn’t let me talk about Fayetteville, Arkansas, I still got him because Joplin, Missouri’s on the list, and that’s only 45 minutes away, and I own property there too. So, Joplin, Missouri. I’ve been buying in Joplin, Missouri for exactly, probably one of the reasons it’s on this list, and that’s because Northwest Arkansas is growing so much and people don’t want to live or are having a hard time finding homes there. And in 45 minutes to an hour away in Joplin, you could get a much bigger home, and Joplin itself still has a pretty good thriving economy. There’s tons of manufacturing there, plus all the job opportunities in the Northwest Arkansas area, pushing people out there. But you can get things, you can buy things that cashflow on the market there sometimes.
And so, it’s a pretty good place. Now, it’s a cashflow market, you’re not going to get a ton of appreciation, but this article says maybe in the future you will. I think it’s going to appreciate in the future, just because of the growth of the Northwest Arkansas market. So, I’m already investing there, I’ve got about six doors there and I’m going to keep buying. Got you.

Dave:
Well, I think after a year, a year and a half of this show, Henry, now we know that you just pick your markets based off gobankingrates.com, you’re just going down the list here.

Henry:
I’ll take my check, gobankingrates.com, you can send that directly to me.

Dave:
His affiliate fee just went up. No, that is Henry, you’re clearly nailing it based on this. And are you buying enough volume to be propping up the Joplin market right now?

Henry:
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

Dave:
Okay. He’s not moving markets.

Jamil:
But Henry and I, we did decide that he was the one direct to seller investor in Northwest Arkansas, which is the reason why his cost per contract out there for his marketing is so low.

Henry:
No, you decided that.

Jamil:
This was a presentation Henry did at our community camp event and he killed it, by the way, I was just clowning on him. If there’s anybody that I would listen to and trust for understanding how to do direct to seller marketing, it’s that man.

Henry:
Look, Jamil completely sabotaged me on stage. I was doing a presentation about how direct to seller marketing is working well for me and how I’m getting a huge return on the money that I spend for my direct to seller marketing and rubbing it in Jamil’s face because he always poops on direct to seller marketing. Then he got on stage and said, “The only reason my marketing does so well is because I’m the only investor in Arkansas.” And then, when we go to do a charity money raise event, my charity giveaway was that I would fly somebody out here to Northwest Arkansas to show them my properties and give them a ride around and show them my offices and all of that. And nobody wanted to come to Arkansas because Jamil pooped on it on stage. And so-

Kathy:
Dude-

Henry:
… you cost the charity money.

Dave:
I want to go, I’ll bid on that.

Kathy:
… I would go.

Henry:
Come on, let’s do it.

Dave:
I’m in. Kathy, let’s go, you and me.

James:
I’m in too.

Dave:
You guys want to go before BP Con?

Henry:
Come on, let’s go.

Dave:
James, you have to skip Vegas.

Henry:
Come on. I’m going to put you guys up in the Swankiest Hotel and I’m putting Jamil in a barn.

Dave:
Are they the same place?

James:
I think we should go door knocking there though. Let’s give Henry some competition in that market.

Henry:
Bring it. Bring it.

Dave:
All right. Well, let’s get out of here. Kathy, James, Henry, Jamil, thank you all so much for being here, it was great having the gang back together. Thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed the show, we do ask that you give us a review on Apple or Spotify, it means the world to us. It really helps us make more great shows just like this. Thanks again, we’ll see you next time for On The Market.
On The Market is created by me, Dave Meyer and Calin Bennett, produced by Calin Bennett, editing by Joel Esparza and Onyx Media, Research by Puja Gendal, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. And a very special thanks to the entire BiggerPockets team. The content on the show On The Market are opinions only. All listeners should independently verify data points, opinions and investment strategies.