Huge Concessions, Cheap Labor, and Where Sellers are Hurting Most

Dave:
Hey, what’s going on everyone? Welcome to On the Market. I’m Dave Meyer. Joined today by Henry Washington. Henry, what’s up man?

Henry:
Hey man, glad to be here. I love doing these episodes, man. Super fun.

Dave:
Yeah, this is a fun interview. Want to tell everyone who we have on today?

Henry:
So yeah, we’ve been talking a lot on the show and other episodes about how real estate is very market specific and we’ve been hearing a lot around prices are coming down and the market is shifting and people need to be careful. And all of those things may or may not be true. So we thought why not talk to some actual investor friendly agents who are out here helping people buy homes, helping people sell homes, helping investors get into real estate and see what their true perspective is on the market and get some actual data. And so this was a super fun episode and I think people are going to learn a lot and it’ll give people a lot of perspective to help them make educated decisions about jumping into the market.

Dave:
Yeah, absolutely. Really well said. I think this is a really digestible, fun episode and we managed to get two agents from different markets. One is in northwest Arkansas with you, obviously, and who can represent what you would call an unsexy market. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have Niyi Adewale who is in Atlanta, one of the hottest markets over the last couple of years. And so you really get perspectives in different markets, and as we’ve been talking about, and as you said, Henry, different markets are going to behave differently. And this gives you a really good insight in how you might want to adjust your strategy based on what’s going on in your local market. So with that, let’s take a quick break and then we’ll bring on Niyi Adewale and Ryan Blackstone to this episode of On the Market. Ryan Blackstone and Niyi Adewale, welcome to On the Market. Thank you both so much for being here.

Ryan:
Thank you. Thank you.

Niyi:
Thank you, Dave.

Dave:
All right, Niyi, let’s start with you. I know you’re based in the Atlanta area, but can you tell us a little bit about your real estate investing experience and your experience as an agent?

Niyi:
Absolutely. First and foremost, Dave, Henry, it’s awesome seeing you both. I really appreciate you having me on. And as you mentioned, I am an investor and a realtor based out of Atlanta. I started in the investing world way before I got my real estate license and I bought my first property through a lot of instruction from the BiggerPockets community as a house hack down in Louisville, Kentucky. But the way my portfolio looks like today, I currently have 25, or I currently have 10 units in Louisville, Kentucky. I almost said 25 because as of last year I did have 25 before selling off a couple. I have four short term rental units in Atlanta and I also manage an additional 11, so 15 total in my management company down here. And I’m working on a syndicate to build out another 105 units, town homes in Louisville, Kentucky, while helping a lot of clients get started in their investing careers and buy either their first or next property in the Atlanta market. Two months ago, I moved into full-time real estate and it’s been off and running ever since.

Dave:
So it is an amazing level of success in a relatively short period of time. Congratulations. And Ryan, I’m tempted to let Henry introduce you since you’re a bit of a package deal here, but can you tell us a little bit about your experience in real estate investing and as an agent?

Ryan:
Yeah, well again, thank you guys so much for letting us on. But yeah, so I started off investing back in 2013, wholesale fix and flip, and let’s pull it all the way up. I got my license maybe two years into it. And so now I have a team of nine and we do about 42 million of sales and it’s like 132 transactions every single year. And, as far as my own investment portfolio, I’ve kind of done eight doors in the multifamily market. I’ve got a small portion in some storage units as well as a commercial building that our office is out of, which is a very open concept right now. And then just do a couple hard money loans and stuff like that. Just whatever I can do to help out our investors and clients. And so, it’s been great.

Dave:
That’s amazing. And for anyone who’s listening and not watching this on YouTube, Ryan’s in the investor shabby chic situation going on here in a completely, just framing behind him. No drywall, no painting, nothing else going on.

Ryan:
Believe it or not, that open concept is a bathroom.

Dave:
Nice.

Henry:
Niyi, you’re not from Kentucky, are you?

Niyi:
No, no, but I lived there for about 15 months. I know Kentucky’s very close to where you are, Henry. Do you invest out that way?

Henry:
No, I don’t. But I noticed you said Louisville and that’s not how you pronounce it if you’re from Kentucky. So I thought there’s way too many syllables if you-

Niyi:
I’ve heard that a lot.

Henry:
Louisville.

Dave:
Well, thank you both for being here. We appreciate it and congratulations on your success as investors. What we’re wanting to talk to you about today is your experience as agents primarily, obviously. They go hand in hand. But we talk on this show a lot about real estate data and we get data from all over the world, but a lot of that is in arrears. Sometimes we’re looking at data here in the end of October from August or September. And one of the best ways to get information and data is just talking to people who have the boots on the ground who are working with investors and buyers and sellers like yourself. So Neil, let’s start with you. I’m just curious, can you tell us a little bit about what’s happening in the Atlanta market? Are you seeing a big slowdown? Are you seeing price drops? What’s the word?

Niyi:
Yeah, it’s definitely been a shift in the Atlanta market. Now, there’s still a lot going for this market. It’s one of the top 10 that people are moving to. There’s a lot of employment opportunities that we can get into later. But as far as the shift, I can just give you a couple examples, right? Early this year it was still highest invest. There was no negotiations that you could do. I actually personally bought a house in the June timeframe and I had to beat out, I think, 20 other offers to get this house. Now, while we were in escrow, that’s when things started to shift. Once the interest rates started to raise and rise consistently, it started to shift into more of a buyer’s market. And since then, I’ve been able to help a couple clients negotiate things that were absurd to think of over the last two years.
For example, I had a client just close on a fourplex via FHA where they’re going to house hack it, live in one unit, rent the others out, and we were able to negotiate the largest seller credit that I’ve done to date. So the house was 525K, we got 31K in seller credits that we used to help buy down that rate from 6.5 to 3.7 to make it a little more attainable. And I have another client under contract for a house with the in-law suite that wasn’t fully finished where the seller agreed to put in a whole kitchenette before closing, which is taking on a lot of risk on their part, but they did it because they understand if they fall out of contract with us, it’s only going to get more difficult for the next person to purchase as the Fed keeps signaling that they’re going to keep raising. And I know it’s not directly tied to mortgage rates, but mortgage rates have been on the rise.

Dave:
That’s amazing. It’s crazy to think that these things are unheard of over the last couple years, like you said Niyi, and those are just normal buying conditions. But, I think for most people who are wanting to be active in this market, that is welcome news to hear that there’s ability to negotiate and actually represent yourself and get a fair deal as a buyer. Ryan, are you seeing similar conditions?

Ryan:
Yeah, I actually am. It’s actually really nice to hear from another market like that. So for us, I just want to give perspective. I feel like we’re an insulated bubble and we’re in the middle of the US so we don’t get market fluctuations on the coastal regions as much. For example, we don’t have a lot of international buyers coming in and purchasing or not purchasing. And so for us here, I mean I could say that there was three phases for the seller. Phase one for the seller was 2020 to March or April where the sellers had heyday. They could get whatever they wanted, at whatever price, whatever condition, 20 offers. And then in the past six months from March or April to today, well four weeks ago when the Fed raised rates again, it was kind of like this miss between sellers and buyers.
Buyers were kind of like, okay, we’re done. This is enough. It’s not only high prices but it’s high interest rates. And then sellers were still hearing from their neighbors that, oh, you can list your price and get 20 offers and all this goodness. And then what happened was five offers would come in and then the sellers were getting frustrated that the expectations were up here and things were changing. Not that prices were necessarily going down, but what I saw in the agency world, which is pretty funny, is agents were scrambling like, oh man, now I have to do professional photography because this thing’s not selling. Or oh man, I can’t just use the Zillow estimate to list the property.
And so what happened is we did see a bunch of price drops, but they dropped to realistic standards. And now I think what’s happened is the sellers are aligning to those realistic expectations with those buyers. And now you’re seeing, like what Niyi was saying is these creative situations like lenders are saying, hey, we’ll take all those closing costs and buy down by points as if you were buying previously. And so yeah, it’s been really good. We’re only getting maybe one offer in 21 days of a property going live. And so everyone kind of freaks out but it’s like wait, that’s how it was before, so we’re okay. Yeah.

Niyi:
And what Ryan’s saying is spot on, even for the Atlanta market as far as the pricing goes. When it was 2020 through mid 2021, you would just price it for 20 to 50K higher than what the next door neighbors sold their house for and it was flying like hot cakes. Now, you have to intentionally price that house either right alongside the comps or slightly below. And in the Atlanta market, it’s still going to go pretty quick if you do that, and by quick, I mean within two weeks you should be under contract. But if you go for that pie in the sky number, which I unfortunately have with one of the flips that I partnered with another investor on, she went for the pie in the sky number. It will sit for a while and you will have to eat that humble pie and lower the price to get that thing sold.

Ryan:
I also was thinking, as far as a buyer’s perspective, what we saw that changed within this year was buyers pre-2020 to 2022 of April, they were just happy to win, happy to get in a home. And then what happened is you started seeing, okay, this price doesn’t match this condition, I can’t afford to repair, so then we started getting those repair costs back in. And another interesting fact was builders. So builders started, because they were losing money, they started reducing everything. No commissions for the agent, no concessions for the buyer. And now we see that the builders are like, oh, let’s pay the agents back again. Oh, let’s give those concessions to the buyer. So that’s been great for the buyer’s side.

Niyi:
One piece just to add on to what Ryan’s saying, one of the best indicators of hey the market’s changed is, as late as early this year, like March, you could not get a seller’s agent on the phone. They were like, hey, send us your offer, highest and best. We’ve got multiple offers. And you just had to write the best offer that you can come up with and send it in. I just spent, before this call, 30 minutes on a call with the seller’s agent that called me because we went to go see their house and she was trying to tell me all the major benefits, hey, it’s near this. I was like, hey, this is completely different from then.

Ryan:
Look who wants to talk now.

Henry:
No, no, no. I think this is awesome man because it’s the actual perspective to that macro level messaging we’ve been hearing about the market slowing down. And so hearing from people who are actually in the business representing sellers, representing buyers, representing investors is, I think, kind of that breath of fresh air that people want to hear. And so it’s kind of, to rephrase what I’m hearing, it’s that, yes, things are slowing down, prices are coming down and adjusting, I’m sorry, price reductions are happening, but you feel like it’s prices reducing to maybe what they were pre-pandemic or what they actually should be. I think a lot of the price drops that you’re seeing, correct me if I’m wrong, are properties that were probably priced too high with the expectation that they were going to get the offers like they were before. And so now, properties are selling more at the price points that are equal to the actual current condition of that property.

Ryan:
Yeah, I would definitely say that. Well, at least in our market. I just really see, and maybe I have a bad perspective, but I would say 80% of the agents don’t even know how to analyze what the value of a property is. And so they’re just listing. I mean, agents were just happy back in the heyday, seller heyday, to get any listing because it was a guaranteed income for them. And they would just do the minimum amount. And now, it’s funny because sellers or agents don’t necessarily want listing leads because they do have to pay for marketing if they’re going to sell it and it’s not a guaranteed income and there’s more work. They’re having to call the buyer agent.

Dave:
I forget who I talked to over the course of the last two years, but some agent was like, I just don’t even work with buyers anymore, it’s just not even worth my time. I’m just going to only work with sellers. It’s like, what are you doing now?

Ryan:
You know, I do see buyers, some of our buyers are dropping out. And it’s almost the class of buyers that either they had a little bit more money and so they were going to buy a short term rental or a secondary home to do long term rentals or whatnot. Or it’s those buyers who were going to upgrade. So prior to 2020, I mean, the rates were just basically locked from 2009 to 2020 except for maybe a little bit of dips. And so, a buyer could essentially buy a home, like a starter home, live in it for three years. They have enough equity that they could then upgrade and buy another home, but it didn’t cost them any more money. But now, if you upgrade, it’s going to cost you more money per month.
And so, we do see those people who can’t afford it, honestly, the poor are the ones that get are getting hurt the most. And so, if they can’t increase their income level, they can’t really upgrade. And so you’re seeing an effect there. And so the buyers or the sellers who are there are going to be those who need it, and those buyers who are there are those who are actually going to need it. So, what is it, like death, divorce, disagreement. Those are the sellers that are out there. And then the buyers are those who really do need to purchase.

Niyi:
Yeah. And I would 100% agree with kind of what you said there at the end, Ryan, around the sellers. If you do not have to sell a home right now, this is a good time to hang on to it, right? Because it’s getting a little tough and we’re heading into winter where it’s historically a lot less buyers out there shopping. So it’s getting difficult from that standpoint. But what I’ve noticed as well is, and I credit BiggerPockets for this, and then also just the cost of living and how high it’s gone, a lot more buyers are interested in doing the house hack method. They’re interested in buying a home where they’re going to be able to rent out some portion of it to help them cover that mortgage. And what I’ve had to do with some clients that are a little bit newer to it, especially in the Atlanta market, because the prices have gone so high that their rents are still trying to catch up.
And if you were to house hack say a duplex, it may not work out the way you want because, yes, you’re going to lower your cost of living, but that rent is not going to be as high as you could from previous and so those numbers are a little tougher, as I’ve had to really meet with clients, talk about their goals and maybe do an alternative method. Hey, instead of long term renting that, let’s furnish it and turn it into a midterm rental or short term rental where it’s going to cover majority of your mortgage and then move out and do that again the next year.
I recently had a client that was specifically looking for duplex, triplex, quadplex, and because everybody’s been listening to the BiggerPockets, everybody knows about house hacks and they’re all looking for those and they’re very hard to come by now, especially ones that make sense. And so what I’ve been able to do with some of my clients is shift their thinking over to, hey, what if we look at a single family with an in-law suite where it’s completely separate? Yes, the meters are all together but this is even more affordable, it’s more fixed up than some of the other ones that we were looking at. And from a house hack perspective, this will actually do better for you. And so we’ve had to get a little more creative from that standpoint.

Henry:
I love that. I love that. It’s kind of like these market conditions are forcing some good behavior, whereas the market conditions before were allowing, I don’t want to say bad behavior, but really just allowing for people to get away with whatever they wanted to. And so now that these market conditions, you’re having to educate buyers more, educate sellers more, you’re having to, I mean, agents are having to sell. It’s a sales job and you’re actually having to sell, you’re having to put some thought into your listings, you’re having to put some creativity into knowing what to list, why to list at a certain price. And yes, maybe you think it could garner a higher price, but you have competition down the street and so being strategic about listing based on what your comps are saying, it’s all what a healthy market should be, in my opinion.
Can we talk about, or can you maybe put some numbers or some data to what you’re seeing in the market? I know Ryan and I talk all the time about what we’re seeing, what list prices are, how many price drops. So can you give some data to some hard numbers to some of this information we’ve been talking about, Ryan?

Ryan:
Yeah, I’d love to. So it’s pretty awesome. We kind of really follow three different numbers to track. Every Monday I just look at it and see what it is. It’s days on market, active inventory and then list price to sell price ratio, right, to see where the market is trending. So, I kind of really think those three phases are important because prior to 2020, we’re seeing that the market is moving into where it was prior to 2020. But if we look at days on market, in our market, days on market includes under contract to close, which typically is 35 to 45 days. So from 2020 to mid 2022, it was basically 45 days on market. It was the lowest it possibly could because everything was being snatched up. Whereas before 2022, 2019 it was more like 75 days on market. And then now, we’ve crept up to 46 of our 56 days on market.
So I love data because data you can make it look in whatever way you want. So yes, days on market it takes 10 more days to sell than it was at the beginning of this year. But if we look at it, we really have to double the number of days on market for it to then switch to a buyer’s market, which mean the buyers really have more of the power. Yes, I’m seeing more power in the hands of the buyer than they were before in the past two years because they can actually negotiate. But again, back then, the buyer’s expectations were just like, oh, can we win? And then now, it’s more like, okay, can I win plus get closing costs or get these repairs done? So yeah, that’s kind of where days on market has been. And then if we go further into inventory, right? So inventory for us in that first phase, it was basically less than 500 homes on the market at any given moment.
And so then we have moved into, now, today, it’s like 18 homes on the market right now. So you could look at it and say, wow, we’re three and a half times more listings than we were at the beginning of this year. But then if you even look past that, prior to that, really we need to be at 4,000 to 6,000 homes at any given day on the market currently. So when you look at that, we need three times more the amount for it even to be considered a buyer’s market. And then on list price to sell price ratio, before we were at 102% list price to sell price ratio. Now we’re at like 99.1% list price to sell price ratio. But again, that number to be a standard of like, is it a buyer’s market? It needs to be below 94%. So yes, we can see signs for us here, a healthier market. And it feels as if the market is crashing or going into a recession. And yeah, that might be the case, but for us here, we have a long way to go to get there.

Henry:
And so, just to clarify on the inventory, it was during the height of the craziness, we were at 500 homes on the market. Pre-pandemic, we were at four to 5,000 homes.

Ryan:
Yes.

Henry:
And currently, we’re at 1800 homes.

Ryan:
Yes. But I would even go to say, in 2019, if you say four to 5,000 homes, that still wasn’t a buyer’s market. You know what I mean? It still was a seller’s market even when we had four to 5,000 homes.

Dave:
I love having both of you on here because Ryan and Henry, you sort of represent the, as Henry always says, the less sexy markets. But Niyi, you’re in one of the sexiest markets that we’ve seen over the last couple years. Atlanta’s just been extremely popular. Are you seeing the same sort of dynamics with days on market and inventory?

Niyi:
So days on market have definitely increased, right? And it’s specifically increased for the homes that were, hey, let me do a quick lipstick on a pig and put it on the market and see if it’ll sell. Those homes are now sitting because, hey, you’ve priced it too high, you’ve got to price it accordingly and you actually have to complete the work that’s supposed to be done for those homes. But to your point, it is a hot market. I can tell you that there’s still a lot of employment coming to Atlanta. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced they’re putting their east coast headquarters down here and they’re building 94 acre campus over the next five years that’s going to break ground next year. So that’s bringing a lot of employment and a lot more eyes. Nike just put their tech hub down here. Airbnb actually just put their east coast headquarters in Atlanta.
And so, a lot of people are moving to the city. And there’s still such a shortage that if you do quality work in your flips or you’ve taken care of your house and you list it reasonably, it’s going to get snapped up within those two weeks. But from a pricing standpoint, affordability is quickly getting out of hand. I can tell you that in January of 2020, the median home price was 290K across the city. As of beginning of this month, it was at 400K. So a 37% increase to just get into the market to buy a property. Now, one piece that hasn’t accelerated as quickly is the condo market.
So if you’re willing to seek those out, there’s an opportunity there to get something for 150, 200. But then from a resale standpoint, it’s going to appreciate a lot slower. And so, for my clients, the ones that are able to qualify for that 400, 450 et cetera, I’m recommending house hack. Let’s go get you a property in a nice neighborhood that’s going to continue to appreciate, because I can tell you that the homes that I purchased in 2021 have gone up significantly.
I purchased a primary home, single family with an in-law suite that I rent out on Airbnb for 670 during all the craziness. And today, it’s worth about 845. I’ve been able to take a HELOC on that and I use that HELOC to invest in flip deals around the city where somebody else is kind of handling that because I’m not the point person on that. And I bought another house in a similar neighborhood for 460 last summer that I used for midterm rental and short-term rental that now is worth 545. And so, homes are continuing to appreciate in these nice neighborhoods in Atlanta because of all the employment and kind of what it looks like in the future. It’s just getting through this rough patch and being able to hang onto the property that will kind of help you out.

Ryan:
Yeah, if I were to say, okay, what do these numbers mean to an agent or to an investor? It’s like if days on market are going up, then just expect and write into your numbers your caring costs to go up. Henry and I got away with a bunch in the past two years because we were just whole telling deals. We couldn’t get contractors to come in and their prices were just too high and we were making more money by just whole telling them. Literally it could be just a disgusting house and we put it on the market and Henry would make like 40, 50 to $100,000 not doing anything. And that’s now starting to change. And so, with buyers, they’re like, I can’t afford a fixerupper and actually fix it up. So it is true in the case that, yes, you are going to have to get in there and make it fresh and clean is what we call it.
Just make it fresh and clean and it will sell. And it still may sit on the market for 21 days. So still holding to that caring cost. A lot of investors I saw, they kind of got saved by the market going up. And so again, you just got to be more data driven and focus on the numbers so that when you go and look to sell a property, you are looking at that lag measure of what was the sold data. Some people were looking at what was actively listed and that’s just a mess for disaster because that’s unrealistic numbers, where the sold data is proof is in the pudding. And so I would just say hold to that standard. And then, even if you think the market is going down, say it’s going down by 10%, factor that in. Don’t just stop because you’re like, oh it’s happening, it’s here. Just factor it in and keep taking action and purchasing.

Henry:
Yeah, that’s a phenomenal point. The numbers and the data points are more important than ever right now. And you had mentioned too, looking at sold comps and not just active comps, well, now there’s an extra additional layer to that, because now when I’m looking at sold comps, I don’t just want to see what sold, I want to know when it was sold. Did it sell when things were going crazy high? And if that’s the case, that sold price, I’m taking 10 to 15% off of that. And that’s what I’m thinking my sold comps are because things were getting bit up like crazy during that time. And if I’m looking at a property and I’m thinking about flipping it and the three best comps all sold six to eight months ago, then I’m not going to look at that number as what I’m going to get because the market is different.
It’s changed that quickly. And so I’m taking a percentage off of that. And so again, you have to be more diligent in your underwriting to give yourself the proper amount of cushion. If things continue to come down or if things even stay flat, I’m not going to sell a property in the same condition at the same price point that I could six months ago. So don’t just pay attention to sold comps, but pay attention to when they sold.

Niyi:
And to that point, Henry, that’s an awesome point, looking at that time. And now when we’re running comps, we’re looking at the last three months and trying to find something, hey, what sold when everything flipped over to this interest rates rising and buyer’s market. And I feel bad for those that were caught mid-flip when all the interest rates changed. So I have a very good friend and somebody that I’ve invested money with on different flips that has a project out in Buckhead, which is an awesome place of Atlanta that’s like the creme de la creme. Anybody that has been down here has probably been in Buckhead at some point.
And all the comps were pointing, hey, 725, 750, man, 775. And so this was all while they were still doing the flip starting in February, I believe. Didn’t get it listed until about two months ago and it’s significantly come down. Now it’s at the point where it’s getting ready to go under contract around, I want to say 645, 650. And that’s significantly lower than all expectations heading into that flip. And it’s just because the market shifted, affordability has gone down from interest rates rising almost double in less than three or four months.

Ryan:
It’s kind of crazy because we get into these moments where different expectations are off on different levels. And so I spoke on how sellers and buyers were at two different spaces for expectations and they weren’t meeting for the past six months. Now, for investors, I almost feel like it’s going to be contractor prices and the higher cost for lending. So, I see that we, Henry and I have a contractor and he told me the other day that he reached out to his tile crew who did all the tile and they just stopped talking to them like for a year and a half. And then just two months ago, they came knocking with their whole crew at the person’s house to say, “Hey, we’re here to show up for work because the builders have stopped supplying us with work.” And so that’s a crazy perspective because now what I think we’ll see is contractor prices, or material prices, I hope, will start to even lower even more.
And so then that helps you in your margin. Now, I would still assume that you’re running your numbers off of today’s prices that contractors are giving you, right? But there may be a margin of safety in six months where contractors start coming down on those prices. And so that’s going to be a huge situation and a helpful situation for us as well. And just to say, even for that investor that maybe made 645, I think if there’s an investor that they’re on their first or second deal and they’re like, oh man, I broke even on this deal, dang it. My advice to them would be, keep going. You didn’t break even. You just keep going because now is the time for you to go get more deals and capture the market. And let that break even deal be a lesson. At least it didn’t cost you to learn that lesson. So keep going.

Henry:
Is your optimism about contractors really because you’re sitting in a place with no drywall right now?

Ryan:
I’m hoping. The bids I’m getting are just ridiculous. That’s the real reason why this isn’t done. It’s been a year in and it’s not done because I’m just hoping for that contractor to come down.

Dave:
Ryan and Niyi, thank you so much. This has been super helpful, but we do have to start wrapping this up. Ryan, do you have any last pieces of advice for people who want to be active in this market?

Ryan:
Yeah, if I could give the word of encouragement, it would be, you hear that saying that most millionaires or billionaires now are made in a recession. And if you really think that is really coming along, think of who that person is. And I don’t think that person who’s making that million or billion is a person that’s just sitting on the sidelines and waiting. Oh okay, here’s the market drop, here’s the market drop, here’s the market drop, now I’m going to start taking action. It’s more that you just need to be taking action now, analyzing those deals, putting yourself in that place to really capture the market. And so, what do I think or what do I see as far as the opportunities coming ahead? Right? I think it’s going to be, whole telling is not going to be there. That’s kind of like the loser, unless it is already in good condition.
But I think the winners are going to be more midterm rentals because those, that’s an emerging coming out of short term rentals. And then I think some of the multifamily and some of the commercial. There’s an interesting dynamic where there is a generation, the biggest generation that’s about to retire. And they own a lot of real estate and a lot of businesses. And the opportunity, honestly, is reaching out to them and seeing if they want to sell. Because if they’re in fear right now, they have a lot to lose because if they lose, or if this was 2008 again, in quotations, then what they’re going to see, they’re going to worry about their retirement.
So capitalizing and reaching out to those people and seeing if they would sell at a discount because they don’t want to miss the opportunity. And they may think that this is an opportunity. And the second piece to that would be then making it more efficient. What’s great about, I feel like us millennials, is now we’re taking businesses, and I really say businesses because that’s what you’re doing. If you’re building a portfolio of properties, you’re really building a business, is you can bring systems and processes to make it more efficient so that you’re cutting down on those costs and making your properties run at a higher level. And that could be going online and that could be leveraging people as well.

Dave:
All right, well said. That’s excellent advice. Niyi, what about you? Any last words of advice for people wanting to get into this market?

Niyi:
Absolutely, and it’s a lot along the lines of what Ryan was saying, but the best time to invest was 10 years ago. And the next best time is right now. When you look at some of the greats that have, to your point, built a lot of wealth, whether it’s in real estate, stocks or whatever it is, they’ve typically followed Warren Buffet’s advice, which is be greedy when everybody’s fearful. And this is definitely a time where a lot of the country is fearful. And I’ve had so many conversations with newer investors that are looking to crack in. They’re like, hey, maybe I should wait. I think there’s going to be a crash. Maybe I should hang off for a year or two, rent for another year, things of that nature. And in my mind, I think every market’s a good market to buy in. Every market’s a good market to start building wealth. You just have to run your numbers accordingly and keep moving from there. And that fear factor is real. I still remember when I bought my first triplex in Louisville, I’m still working.

Ryan:
Louisville.

Niyi:
They hit me on that too in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2016, it was scary. I didn’t sleep three days before or two weeks after. I was like, what am I doing? I’m going to mess this up. I was in the BiggerPockets forum asking, I still look back at some of those posts and I shake my head. But everybody kind of gathered around me. And so what I’d recommend, especially for the newer investors, is this is an opportunity to get in, actually be able to negotiate some things back for you. And if you are dealing with some of that fear and anxiety that does come, surround yourself with other investors and other professionals that invest as well. For example, Ryan and I are both investor-friendly realtors. So we work with investors daily, we invest ourselves, and so we’ve learned some techniques to kind of secure properties, but I don’t even stop there.
I have an investor-friendly CPA. My CPA owns more units than I do, and he just bought a coffee franchise. So I’m talking to him like, hey man, can you help me get in here? And things of that nature. And so, if you can start to surround yourself with other professionals that are actively doing it and are in a place that you want to be and keep listening to podcasts like this where you have a lot of professionals that are crushing it now or crushing it back then or are going to crush it in the future and learn from them, you will be successful. You just got to take that first step no matter what’s going on right now.

Dave:
All right. Great advice from both of you. Thank you both so much for being here. Niyi, if people want to connect with you, what is the best place for them to do that?

Niyi:
For those watching on YouTube, you want to go to @ekabohome. It’s also on Instagram. And ekabo means welcome in Yoruba and home. E-K-A-B-O home.

Dave:
Awesome. And what about you, Ryan? Where should people connect with you?

Ryan:
Man, I feel so bad. I’m the exact opposite of Henry. You can find me at blackstonecompany.com.

Dave:
All right, awesome. I love that. Did you just make that up on the spot? You’re like Blackstone Company. I don’t know.

Henry:
Got to go buy this domain name right now.

Dave:
Yeah, don’t worry. It won’t air for a few weeks. You could buy the domain.

Ryan:
Man, well, that’s what I was telling my wife. I was like, oh, Niyi’s got a YouTube channel. What if I tell them to go to my YouTube channel? But then they’re going to see I made 30 videos in the last 30 days just to throw it up.

Dave:
You got to start somewhere, man.

Ryan:
Yeah, you do. You do.

Dave:
All right, well, thank you both for being here. This has been a real pleasure for us and we appreciate you sharing your on the ground knowledge with all of our listeners, and hopefully we’ll have you both back on the show sometime soon.

Ryan:
Hey, I appreciate you guys.

Niyi:
Thank you so much.

Dave:
All right, that was awesome. I think this episode just goes to show how important it is to have an agent and a team just in general that also invests and who is experienced working with investors.

Henry:
Yeah. Anybody who ever had a question about, well, why is it important or why should I care if my agent is an investor or works with investors? That whole episode was your answer to that question. And I think it’s important too, especially if you’re new. If you got into this game a couple of years ago, or even as little as a year ago, you didn’t have to be as diligent about underwriting. And if you’re new and you haven’t gotten in yet, it is so much more important now to pay attention to underwriting. And so having an investor friendly agent who can help you with that underwriting, who can give you some ideas for things you might not have thought about, is so important now to give you an edge. So man, I think this was a super powerful episode.

Dave:
Yeah. That was fun. I learned a lot. It was super helpful. How did you find Ryan, because obviously Ryan’s your agent. How did you connect with him?

Henry:
Yeah, so Ryan kind of found us. So we used to do local meetups around here and I had found a couple of investor friendly agents at those local meetups. And then Ryan started to come to our meetup, our BiggerPockets meetup we would have. So we used the BiggerPockets forums, we created a BiggerPockets meetup, and Ryan started coming to the meetups and he would just introduce himself and he would talk to us and he would say, hey, well I understand you have an agent that you’re working with, but if things ever change, feel free to give me a call. And at some point, and he was just always around. And then at one point the agents we were using either got too busy or decided they didn’t want to work with us, and so we gave Ryan a shot and he has been phenomenal ever since.
And so, I’ve always said the best place to find investor friendly agents is at meetups because if they’re at a meetup, either they’re interested in investing or they are investing or they’re interested in working with investors. And so, kind of what set Ryan apart was he was just always there. And then when the time came for us to use him, he went above and beyond and he’s gone above and beyond ever since.

Dave:
That’s awesome. Honestly, it’s so comforting to have a relationship with your agent and just have someone to honestly just bounce ideas off of too.

Henry:
Yes.

Dave:
I love that the agent I work with, his name’s Andrew Keel in Denver, will tell me not to buy deals all the time. That’s what you want. If you just go and find an agent who’s not trying to build a long term relationship with you and seeing this as a partnership, they’ll just tell you to buy anything because they’re just looking for that one commission check and then they’ll just move on to the next thing. But if you find a good agent, it’s really about establishing, it’s almost like being in business together. You’re not obviously under the same business, but you kind of are. You’re partners in a way.

Henry:
Yeah, 100%. He makes money because he works with me. I make money and save money because I work with him. And it’s just this symbiotic relationship, man. It’s perfect.

Dave:
That’s awesome. And if you are looking for a investor friendly agent, we do have a service on BiggerPockets. It’s 100% free. Just go to BiggerPockets.com/agentfinder where you can find great agents just like me and Ryan and literally hundreds more in pretty much every market across the country. So you should definitely check that out if you’re looking to build out your team. Henry, thank you so much for being here. Oh, congratulations by the way. You got 100,000 Instagram followers, right?

Henry:
I did. Thank you man. I appreciate it. It’s been a crazy journey. I never thought that this many people would care to listen to anything I have to say. But it’s been a super fun journey and I’m glad that I get to help people change their lives with real estate.

Dave:
Well, that’s awesome. Well, how long, when did you start that Instagram account?

Henry:
Not long after I bought my first property, so five years ago.

Dave:
Okay, wow. And 100,000 years. That’s amazing. So I’ll just do the plug for you. Go follow this man, Henry Washington, @theHenryWashington on Instagram. Where else? Anywhere else they should find you?

Henry:
Nah, that’s the best place. Instagram or my website, henrywashington.com.

Dave:
Sweet. And I am @thedatadeli on Instagram as well. If you like this episode, please make sure to give us a review on Apple or Spotify. We really appreciate it. Share it with a friend and we will see you all next time for On The Market. On The Market is created by me, Dave Meyer and Kailyn Bennet. Produced by Kailyn Bennett, editing by Joel Esparza and Onyx Media, research by Pooja Jindal and a big thanks to the entire BiggerPockets team. The content on the show On The Market are opinions only. All listeners should independently verify data points, opinions, and investment strategies.