Category: Real Estate Agents

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.

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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)

• Deferring Taxes on ANY Highly Appreciated Asset Sale with Brett Swarts
• Investing in Real Estate Using an IRA with Jason DeBono
• How to Take HUGE Depreciation using Cost Segregation with Yonah Weiss
• 850 Flips & 180 Rentals with Andrew Holmes
• REO Broker & Investor on Picking the BEST Deals
• Off Market Real Estate Deals
• Scaling Up to 3,500 Units Multi Family with Joe Fairless

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