A new, National Survey sponsored by Premier Property Management Group was released this week discussing the long-term impact of renters in single-family homes.  Real estate investing has been a hot topic for the last few years and the media has really picked up the pace of reporting on large hedge funds buying property around the country.  As investors take a bigger role in purchasing distressed properties, no one has studied what the intentions were or the future plans of the renters who are occupying these properties.  There have been a lot of questions, but not a lot answers when it comes to what are the "new" renters going to do when they have the opportunity to purchase property again?

This post is aimed directly at real estate investors who are buying properties as a way to generate additional income.  So often, we forget that the income that is coming in has value too.  Not just in our pockets, but also as part of your long-term investment strategy.

Memphis Is Ready For A Growth Leader

Over the past two months, we have been reaching out to different community partners, government programs and other business leaders to get a sense of what the real potential was for a new project we have had in mind.  As a local real estate investing business, we have been blessed to grow at a time when a lot of other companies in other industries are struggling.  Why?  Because our business has never been real estate.  Our business has always been customer experience.  So while we have been blessed with growth and the ability to help a lot of other companies grow and thrive as well, we have begun to think what could be next and what impact can we have on a bigger scale within the community.  We have met with some big names to gather inspiration and even traveled the world to meet them, but have always come back to what lies three feet out our front doors.  The great city of Memphis!

Every so often, I like to circle back around to topics and re-illustrate a point for our readers, staff and even our clients.  I happened to be talking to another passive real estate investment company last week and they were asking me about weeding through all the calls and requests they get from potential investors.  They relayed that they were getting a hundred or more calls and emails a week from interested investors and often they were spending a lot of time on the phone with no real chance of helping the investor get started.  For a myriad of reasons, the investor was not a good fit for their company.  I pulled a line from an article I had written almost a year ago to try and help them get over their hurdle:

Memphis Area Association of Realtors Reports Big Growth

The Memphis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR) showed a tremendous increase in year over year sales for January to start 2013.  The association released data entered into the MAAR data property records database showing over 1,250 sales for the month of January which was a 46% increase over January of 2012.  The total number of properties sold was also an 8.9% increase over December of 2012.

Many Memphis real estate investors are buying their investment property as a long-term buy/hold strategy.  The properties should produce a consistent return on investment, but the main strategy should not be waiting for value increases and then selling for a profit.  Memphis is simply not a market where appreciation is the main investment prerogative. 

Why Due Diligence Matters

I wrote an article that was published this afternoon at BiggerPockets.com, which meant it was time to send out this email.  Many who are reading this email have come to know our company very well and many have come to know our family too.  We receive thank you cards and letters nearly every week commenting on the impressive company we have built and how impressed they are with the hard charging leadership that comes from Kent Clothier, Sr.  We affectionately just call him Senior!

White Board Real Estate Investing Plans

Whenever we speak to real estate investors around the country, always sharing the story of our great city Memphis, Tennessee and more importantly what is happening with our real estate investing company, we tell investors that there is no White Board hanging on a wall with a business plan outlining the path to where we are today.  It would make a great story if that were the case, but the reality is that we made some very good decisions early on and put ourselves in position to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves.  Recognizing those opportunities and taking advantage of them has been the hard part.  When you mix good decisions with the right opportunities and a little luck, you get a small, family-owned company that has grown from a handful of employees to a Inc. 500/5000 fastest growing company employing almost 40 employees, nearly 300 vendor employees, managing 1,600 plus investment properties with a value approaching $150 Million for over 600 real estate investors!  And there is more to come...

Dotting "I's" and Crossing "T's"

We have always considered ourselves as business men first and real estate investors second.  With such rapid growth over the past two years, like any good business owners would do, we have been on a constant search to surround ourselves with excellent people who can help guide our growth.  In addition to simply looking for great talent and even better advice, we have also had to adopt new rules and the guidelines of a large and growing company by developing HR best practices, vacation policies, travel schedules, new computer systems, a more diverse roster of partner companies from closing attorneys to insurance providers, along with letting go of contractors who simply could not keep up to our standards.

We have also committed our company and staff to sharing data publicly so that interested real estate investors along with our current clients can track and compare our data with their results.  Data such as property management numbers graphed and reported monthly, sales numbers reported quarterly and beginning during the 4th quarter of 2012, renovation permits reported monthly.  The permits was a big issue to us as our contractors pulled over 400 permits on properties in 2012.  Of course, not every property needs a permit and not every action taken on a property has to be permitted.  None the less, we have begun reporting the numbers of permits that contractors are pulling monthly on properties we are renovating and managing.  None of this is required and certainly not necessary to conduct business.  We do it as a way of providing transparency for our clients, interested investors and unfortunately, because sometimes we have to do it to set the record straight!

With all of the changes that the company has undergone in 2012, we thought now would be a perfect time to look back at those changes, report some final numbers and take a look at where we expect to go in 2013.  Be sure to let us know what you think at the bottom of the article!

New Faces & A New City

We will remember 2012 for several reasons, but mainly because it wore us out!  Very quietly in the fourth quarter of 2011 we began exploring opening a second office in another city.  Dallas, Texas was a natural fit for us since it is where we had lived for so many years and we had family and business ties to the area.  We opened an office in Dallas during the Spring of 2012 and opened Dallas Invest, GP and had a fantastic year.  We were able to complete 55 transactions, open our property management company, hire three full time employees, host two small tours of our properties to help us work out the kinks in the new city and over-all finish with what we felt had been as smooth a process as possible.  We have been repeatedly asked about the website DallasInvest.com and all I can say is it is coming, but not until the time is right for rapid growth in Texas and we are not quite ready yet.  We still have some work to do to ensure that the investment process and the customer service experience are the highest level possible.