The Anchorage, Alaska Real Estate Market-the Land of Opportunity?

Joe Bell is a real estate agent and investor in the Anchorage, Alaska Real Estate market. The population is less than 300,000 people. Compare this with the metro population of Chicago at 8 million, or even Atlanta with 6 million, and you might wonder just how much opportunity could exist in a smaller city like this.

Episode:  Anchorage Alaska Real Estate-Developing Million Dollar Homes with Joe Bell

Guest: Joe Bell is the author of Assets, Acquisitions, & Abundance: A Guide to Building True Wealth & Legacy through Real Estate. Joe is also a Real Estate Agent from Anchorage Alaska. Joe used to run a billion dollar/year brokerage business before dedicating his primary focus to investing, building new homes, and helping others find the way to long term wealth

Big Idea: “You’re in the Business of Real Estate to BUY REAL ESTATE.” Joe’s experience running a billion dollar brokerage business revealed too many agents generated solid commission income their entire career, but found themselves without assets later in life as retirement loomed. He developed Legacy Beyond Listings to help real estate professionals see the opportunity in buying & selling instead of simply transacting.

Of course this comes with some risk. This past March, Joe was preparing to break ground on a million dollar new construction deal. As Covid began shutting down the world, his $900K in funding disappeared, leaving him holding the bag on the half-started, high stakes project. Think he was able to pull it off? You’ll have to check out the episode to find out!

 

  

Episode Sponsored by the Deal Machine:

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Real Estate Transactions are Like Crack. Do it Once & You Can Never Stop…

Fix & flip investors, wholesalers, & even real estate agents typically begin their career by closing a deal. That’s where it all starts. Then they discover they have to close another deal, and yet another to keep the income machine moving. It’s like being on a treadmill where you can never stop running. If you stop doing transactions, the income also stops. I know this because it’s my experience.

I’ve been in the business of flipping houses since 2006. This past year we bought & sold 283 houses. We are running FAST on that treadmill to keep the income machine working. Contrast this “transactional” method with that of buy & hold investor whose goal is purchasing and controlling real estate or the long term.

The buy & hold investor eventually reaches a certain scale and can stop a acquiring new deals. Over time, as rental rates rise, the buy & hold investor reaches a point where they can sit back and simply manage the portfolio and live on the income. My path in real estate investing provides plenty of income, but automatic momentum if I were to stop doing transactions. I’m hooked, and I will not stop. Truth be told, I LOVE flipping houses & transforming neighborhoods. For me, this business stopped being about the money a long time ago.

Buying & Holding Assets is Like a Healthy Diet & Exercise

When I was in college I had a friend with a wealthy father. I grew up broke and assumed anyone who was rich just had a lot of money. When I asked him, “How much money does your dad have?” He answered, “It’s not about how much money you have. It’s about how many assets you own & operate effectively” It’s taken me years to fully grasp the truth here. Now my goals aren’t solely around how much income I can generate, but how I can acquire assets to create opportunities for myself later in life.

For example, a few years ago I decided to invest in a package of 5 houses throughout Philadelphia. I bought them for two reasons. First, I hoped the houses would appreciate in value. Second, I believed that those houses would be a better place to park my savings than a bank. I thought that in a few years I could sell the houses for a bit more than I paid and use the money to pay for my daughter’s education.

The results came much faster. I sold two of the houses 1 & 2 years after I bought and cleared a $35,000 profit on each. No renovations necessary. Worth noting, I bought them tenant occupied and sold them as the tenants moved. To this day, I still own 3 houses and am in good shape to profit once the tenants move. It would be important to note that I paid fair market value for all 5 houses. It actually felt like I overpaid at the time. But the rents have risen along with the values.

These deals work much slower than my fix & flip deals. The flips generate $35K in just 6 months or less, while I waited a year or two, or even three or more for the same profit. The flips are fun where the rentals are a bit boring. That’s why they’re like the healthy diet & exercise. Just like the diet & exercise are activities that payoff in the long run, so too do my rentals produce a feast at some point in the future when I sell or refi.

Assets, Acquisition, & Abundance-Spotting the REAL Money in Real Estate

The example I shared of my own 5 house package came as a result of me overcoming a few limiting beliefs around real estate ownership. Although I flipped quite a few houses before I purchased those houses, I hated the idea of owning rentals. I thought that every tenant would beat me on the rent. Like-no one would pay once I owned the house. While I have had a few evictions in my portfolio, most of the tenants have paid. But that fear stopped me from building my portfolio earlier-which would have set me much further ahead than I am now. Maybe you can relate.

Joe witnessed many agents with similar limiting beliefs while running the billion dollar brokerage business. It was the reason he wrote the book: Assets, Acquisition, & Abundance. Joe’s philosophy of Legacy Over Listings aims to help those “Transactional” minded agents into spotting the REAL money being made in real estate. Flipping & holding real estate long term, when correctly executed, pays out substantially over simply listing & closing deals.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

www.LegacyBeyondListings.com

 

Joe Bell & I Discuss Anchorage Alaska Real Estate:

  • How Many Houses Could Possibly Sell in Alaska Each Year?

  • Who are the Buyers in the Alaska Real Estate Market?

  • How to Transform Beyond a “Transactional” Mindset to Investing

  • Integrating the Will to Win with Business & Real Estate

  

Relevant Episodes: (There are 181 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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