THE BEST INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE TODAY THAT THRIVES IN BOTH GOOD AND BAD ECONOMIC TIMES MIKE CONLON
in the 10th year of his 15year plan. His plan was buying an older, singlefamily house each year for around $ 50,000. He bought each house at a 15 20 % discount from the market value because it needed work, which he was able to do himself and with a little help from some of his friends. He said he could rent it for $ 500 / month, which was a little below the market rent, and keep it rented because“ in good times or bad times, there is always a need for affordable housing in this country.” His plan also included using all his profits to pay off his mortgage as soon as possible. Being young and naïve at the time, I thought he was crazy to invest in boring affordable housing because the stock market was averaging over 20 % returns each year.
perform well in good and bad economic times.”
So I did what at least 95 % of the other investors won’ t ever do – I took action! I sold my financial planning practice and started to invest in affordable housing. My research led me to buying multifamily investments, i. e. apartments or mobile home communities, because all your tenants are in one place making it much easier to manage. For the first four years, I bought affordable apartment complexes in Orlando, FL with the intention of holding them for the longterm. However, prices soared so I sold all seven of my complexes by mid 2006 because I had received unsolicited offers that were way more than I
I didn’ t see that client again for five years. During that fiveyear period, the stock market lost nearly 40 % of its value, with those invested in technology stocks losing much more. When I saw him, I asked the client how life was treating him. He said he had just put in his retirement papers at the mill because he now had 12 of the houses paid off and his net income, after all expenses were paid, was over $ 60,000 / year, more than he ever made at the mill. More important, his net worth was now over $ 1 million. After hearing this, I thought to myself – why would you ever invest in the stock market when you could invest in affordable housing?
So I spent a couple months researching the real estate industry. My research more than validated my old client’ s thesis that“ affordable housing investments had paid a couple years prior. Once I sold, I wanted to reinvest, but Florida prices were too high, so I looked around and with strong input from one of my commercial brokers, I decided to invest in North Carolina. But instead of buying more apartment complexes, I started buying mobile home communities( MHC” s). I had no idea what MHC’ s were in 2005, though I had probably driven by many through the years. However, I found some information