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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our best investments
by far have been real estate and
we've owned five homes and ofall those homes, we've earned
the biggest return on thoseversus stocks.
Welcome to the show Fairways andFinance.
My name is Jeff Smith.
I've been in the mortgagebusiness for 16 years top
quarter percent LO nationwideand you know this podcast.
(00:23):
We want to talk about yourfinances, how to grow and
accumulate wealth and all thingsrelated to the mortgage
industry.
But we're golf lovers here aswell, so we're going to work in
some golf.
Don't worry for my golf loversout there.
We got you and I hope you enjoythe show.
Welcome back to the show.
Everybody, hope you're doingwell.
Jeff Smith, fairways andFinance.
(00:44):
Today what I want to talk aboutis three reasons why I think
real estate is a betterinvestment than stocks.
Now, not that you shouldn'tinvest in the stock market, and
Danielle and I have money in thestock market.
It's a great place to invest.
It's relatively easy because itdoesn't take a lot of effort to
get money into the stock market.
You can just sign up for anE-Trade account or talk to a
(01:05):
financial advisor, and so youknow.
That should definitely be partof your long term retirement
plan to put money into stocks,but as I'm getting older, I'm
starting to reflect a lot moreon, you know, things that have
happened to me during my life sofar and during my career.
And when I look back, forDanielle and I, our best
investments by far have beenreal estate, and we've owned
(01:27):
five homes and of all thosehomes, we've earned the biggest
return on those versus stocks,and so that's where I think that
people should focus a lot ofmoney when investing and that's
where we're going to turn a lotof our attention to an investing
moving forward.
We're still going to put moneyinto the stock market every
month, but we're going to putmore of a focus into developing
(01:50):
a rental real estate portfoliocommercial and residential in
the next 10 years.
That's a big goal of mine.
So three reasons why real estateis a better investment than
stocks.
The first is called leverage.
So leverage means that you'reborrowing to purchase a real
estate asset.
So say, for example, you've got50 grand.
If you had 50 grand to invest,you could put $50,000 into an
(02:14):
E-Trade account.
Now you've got 50 grand in thestock market and you're invested
with 50 grand in the stockmarket.
If you took that 50 grand andwent and bought a primary
residence, you could put 5% downon a $1 million home as your
primary residence.
Now you have $1 millioninvested in the real estate
market.
So if stocks make 7% and realestate makes 3 or 4 or 5 over
(02:37):
the long haul, 5%, let's say 4%4% on a million dollars is
$40,000 a year that that home isgoing up in value.
So you're gaining 40 grand ayear in equity just based on the
value of the real estate.
7% on $50,000.
Let me use my calculator hereso I don't hurt myself is $3,500
(03:01):
.
So if you're making 7% in thereal estate market versus the
stock market, or, excuse me, ifyou're investing $50,000 in the
real estate market versus thestock market, 7% return in
stocks, 5% return or 4% returnin real estate, you're making
$3,500 versus $40,000.
(03:22):
So that's $36,500 more you makeby putting that money into real
estate.
That does not take into accounta bunch of other write-offs and
deductions and stuff you getI'm going to talk about in a
minute here.
So the leverage with real estateis huge.
You cannot invest with leveragein the stock market the same
way that you can in real estate.
Now leverage can get you intotrouble as well.
(03:44):
If you over leverage yourself,you get yourself in a situation
where you have too high ofpayments and you can't meet the
obligations.
Then you could put yourselfinto bankruptcy.
So you don't want to do thateither.
You've got to be more carefulinvesting with leverage because
it could come back to bite youif things weren't good.
So I think for the averageperson, a great strategy to
(04:05):
build a real estate portfoliowithout having to put a ton of
money down is to buy a newprimary residence every two or
three years.
So if you buy a primaryresidence, put 5% down, live in
it for two or three years, thenyou convert it to a rental and
go buy a new primary residence.
All you have to do is just gobuy a new primary, move into the
new primary 5% down and thenrent out your old primary.
(04:27):
And what's great about that ison a conventional loan, if you
get a lease agreement in place,we can use 75% of that lease
income on your departingresidence as qualifying income
for the purchase for the newprimary residence.
So if you buy each home as aprimary, you have to live in it
for at least 12 months, but ifyou live in it for at least 12
months, you're playing by therules and you get a better
(04:50):
interest rate and lower downpayment.
If you buy the home straight upas an investment property, you
have to put at least 15% downand the rate is almost 2% higher
and there's more fees.
So if you're willing to buy andmove, buying a primary
residence every two to threeyears can be a great way to
build up a real estate portfolio.
You do that for 10 years andyou could have three to five
(05:11):
rental properties plus yourprimary residence.
Now, as you acquire theseproperties with leverage, it's
important to be mindful of thefact that you've got a lot of
debt out there that needs to bepaid by way of mortgages.
So if each property is rentedand the rental income is
covering the mortgage payment,then you're good.
(05:33):
But where you run into problemsis if you have a vacancy or if
the rental market turns downit's more difficult to get a
renter into the home or if youhave a renter that goes in and
trashes the place.
So as you're building this realestate portfolio, super
important to have cash reservesand you should have at least six
(05:55):
months of cash reserves permortgage property to cover
expenses, vacancies, unexpectedthings that would come up
repairs etc.
So if you're going to useleverage it's very important to
pair that with cash savings sothat if you run into trouble you
don't all of a sudden gobankrupt in three months because
(06:16):
you can't meet your debtpayments.
So very important when workingwith leverage to be careful with
it in that aspect.
The second reason real estate,in my opinion is better than
stocks is access to cash.
So let's say that you buy thatfirst primary residence and
let's say you live in it forthree years and let's say the
(06:37):
market's really good.
It goes up 10% each year.
So if you bought a $500,000home, $500,000 times 1.1.
Times 1.1 times 1.1, that homewould be worth $665,500.
So it would have gone up ahundred and sixty-five five in
(06:57):
value Over three years at tenpercent a year.
That's if the market's reallygood.
You know, say the market wasjust average.
It might have gone up 70 or 80grand.
But regardless of whether it'shundred and sixty-five or 80
grand that it's gone up, you canget access to some of that
equity by refinancing themortgage on a cash out refinance
(07:18):
or taking out a home equityline of credit.
So if you do either of those totap into the equity.
Let's say you pull out 75 grandout of the home.
The 75 grand, you know, is aloan against the real estate but
it does not count as incomefrom tax purposes.
So you can get your hand onseventy five thousand dollars of
cash without having to pay anyincome tax.
(07:40):
You do have a mortgage paymentthat you're making or a home
equity line of credit paymentthat you're making, but you've
got that cash in the bank so youcan take that cash and use it
to purchase another piece ofreal estate.
Or you can take some of thatcash and use it to purchase
another piece of real estate andBolster your cash savings.
So that can work really well,especially when rates are in a
(08:03):
downward cycle and you canrefinance, lower the rate on the
mortgage and take equity out atthe same time a lot Times,
depending on how much you'retaking.
You can do that with hardlyincreasing your mortgage payment
.
So as you, as you take thisequity out, if you can keep the
total payment you know equal toor less than the rent that
you're bringing in, then you'renot having to pay out a pocket
(08:24):
for those payments on the On theequity that you get out.
So that's one, and then thesecond way you get more access
to cash with real estate is Withthe cash flow on the rental
itself.
So if you have a strong rentalproperty where the rental amount
is more than the mortgagepayment and your expenses,
you're pocketing cash everymonth.
(08:44):
So if you're cash flow on 500bucks a month on three or four
properties, that's a couplegrand a month just coming into
your accounts without you havingto do anything to work for it.
You know, aside from somemanagement on the properties.
So that that's another way thathaving real estate can get you
access to more cash.
Okay, cash is king.
That's always the same.
(09:05):
Cash is king because it's true.
So real estate gets you moreaccess to cash.
Number three reason why realestate I think it's a better
investment than stocks is youhave lots of tax benefits with
real estate.
So, real estate, you can writeoff what's called depreciation.
So depreciation is a Accountingmethod that allows you to
(09:25):
deduct a certain percentage fromyour taxes every year, based on
the value of that home.
So the based on the value ofthe home, depreciating for that
asset, and and the great thingabout it is most homes, even
though they're getting older andin need of some repairs.
If you're in a growing market,you're able to write off
depreciation, but the value ofthe home is going up, so it's a
(09:48):
great write-off.
Mortgage interest can bededucted, so your expense for
mortgage interest is a taxwrite-off.
Repairs, general maintenance,contractors All of those
expenses can be written off aswell.
So it's a great way to loweryour tax, your tax bill and your
taxable income by deducting allof these expenses On your real
(10:12):
estate portfolio.
And then, in addition, if youhave a primary residence and you
work out of the home, you candeduct money off of your taxes
for working at home as your homeoffice.
So tons of good tax write-offswith real estate that you don't
get at when you invest in stocks.
So that's another great reasonto invest in real estate, and
(10:36):
there's a lot of others, butthose are the three that come to
mind for me personally, off thetop of my head.
And then you know one otherpoint with buying real estate.
I think it's a great idea.
You know, obviously you want tobuy these homes at the best
price that you can get them, andso I think the best way to get
real estate at a great value Isto a either get lucky with
(10:59):
market conditions and just buyat the right time, or be buy at
a time when there's a lot ofsupply, because then it it's
harder for sellers to sell andthey're more willing to cut you
a deal.
Or if you buy a home that isugly the ugly stepchild home and
that home requires some work onyour behalf.
(11:22):
It requires painting, it mightrequire flooring or redoing
cabinets, it might requireredoing the yard, whatever.
But if you're willing to putsome money and time into the
home to remodel it, improve it,you're going to improve the
value by a huge amount.
So the house that Danielle andI are in right now, we just
recently sold it and we boughtit for $725,000 in 2016.
(11:47):
We put in about $350,000 intothe home over a period of six
years, because we've been inthis house for six and a half
years.
So we did a lot of remodelingthe flooring.
We've repainted it a couple oftimes.
We completely redid the frontand back yard, put in an awesome
pool and backyard.
We redid all the cabinets, werefaced them, new countertops
(12:08):
Basically, we remodeled theentire home except the bathrooms
.
So we spent about $350,000.
So we're into the home for closeto $1.1 million and we sold it
for $1.7 million and we lived init for six and a half years.
So we made $600,000 on thishome and we got to live in it
for six and a half years.
It's a great home.
It's a great place to live andwe got a lot of tax write offs
(12:30):
with it as well.
Now we got lucky with benefitof COVID prices.
Two of those last years homevalues were going up like 25%,
which is super rare in the realestate market.
But say that didn't happen.
I think the home would havebeen worth $1,000, $2,000 or
$1,300, so we still would havemade $200,000 or $300,000 in a
(12:51):
period of six years, which is aton of money.
That's a great investment.
So real estate, if it'spurchased right, can be an
excellent investment and, justlike any other investment, the
longer you hold it, the moreit's going to go up in value.
So the longer you can keepthese properties in your
portfolio, the better off you'regoing to be, because really
(13:12):
it's very difficult to time anykind of market.
When you buy at the just, atthe right time, it's basically
luck, and so the longer that youhold an investment, the better
chance you give yourself ofbeing a part of some of the
really good years and also someof the really bad years, but it
will smooth itself out and giveyou a nice return the longer you
(13:33):
hold the asset.
So that's real estate Three ofthe reasons why I think it's a
great investment.
Dm me, give me a call.
I'd be happy to talk to you oranswer any questions you have
about this.
I own a mortgage company, tigerHome Loans.
We're a residential mortgagelender here in Arizona and
opening in Tennessee and wouldlove to help you on your next
(13:54):
real estate transaction.
Hey guys, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed the show andgot some valuable information
out of it.
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(14:15):
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