Realty411 Magazine The Future of Real Estate is Here | Page 78

S
into one more boarded-up building to trash
out, air out, and fix up. Plumbing and elec-
trical, paint and carpet, once interesting
and challenging, became a grind. “After
awhile my wife and kids got tired of it. It’s
hard work!”
By Pam McKissick
mall and mid-tier investors
are not only an import-
ant part of the real estate
marketplace, but they’re the
backbone of the free-en-
terprise system. They’re sourcing,
buying, renovating, managing, renting,
and selling the assets they purchase on
a daily basis. Their emphasis on speed,
and their streamlined approach to
management, facilitates rapid change
in cities and towns. Their fixer-uppers
may end up as a young couple’s starter
home or older couple’s retirement con-
do. Their commercial assets become
coffeehouses and dance studios, lofts
and bistros, bringing back deserted
downtowns and revitalizing neighbor-
hoods.
With mutiny as close as their living room,
why are these investors at their desks
at three a.m. roaming through websites
looking for more properties to buy and
sell? Their mantra, “I’m gonna retire rich
at fifty.” But when I rang a few investors
who’d reached age fifty, they weren’t
retiring at all! They were moving up to
bigger buildings or a new strategy. Invest-
ing was in their blood. They got excited
just talking about it. They were going to
retire but not just yet! They were addict-
ed…“mainlining” multi-family, high on
high-rise.
Cutting the deal, making the place “shine
on a dime,” and realizing a big profit is
a heady experience when it all hinges on
their own vision and tenacity. When I
asked what would make their lives better,
what could a company like ours do for
them, they said, give us a first look—give
us somebody to talk to who doesn’t waste
our time, give us a chance to make an
offer before it goes to market—and if a
deal falls out, call us first. Their requests
became the genesis of our Investor Market
Desk.
The mid-level investor has a turn-of-
the-century work ethic that should
be applauded and, more importantly,
encouraged. A late-night-oil entrepre-
neur, he does most of the work him-
self—searching dozens of websites to
evaluate hundreds of homes in a single
evening, running the numbers, creating
his own analytic models, evaluating
past-performance of similar assets. For
the most part, it’s entirely his money,
or his family’s money, at risk. No won-
der he’s adamant about low purchase
prices, quick turns, and big ROI.
The Investor Market Desk revolves
around a simple three-step process:
1) Investors call our market desk and ask
to be placed on our proprietary investor
list. We don’t have a phone bank full of
people, just a couple of smart market
makers who will very quickly know them
by name.
2) We determine what they’re looking for:
commercial, residential, multi-family, and
in what value range—three hundred thou-
sand, three million, thirty million—and
whether they’re a national, regional, or lo-
cal player…or maybe just buying within a
fifty-mile radius of where they live.
3) Our market rep will give them advance
notice of investment properties heading
for auction; and after the auction, if for
some reason the property didn’t close, the
investors will get a call saying a particular
asset is available.
>
In talking to many small investors with
portfolios ranging from ten to a hun-
dred assets, I’ve asked them how they
staff to keep so many projects going at
one time. Almost to the man (yes, it’s
mostly men) they laugh and confide
that their wives and kids have resigned
from their work force, refusing to go
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strategy
Williams & Williams

PAGE 78 • 2014

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