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Turnkey Real Estate Investing

4 min read

Memphis Invest Named Among Top Turnkey Companies 2019

By Chris Clothier on Wed, Nov 6, 2019


In October, Memphis Invest was listed among
Fit Small Business’ Best Turnkey Real Estate Companies in 2019. If you’re unfamiliar with Fit Small Business, it is a digital resource for small business owners located in New York. They have been featured by the New York Times, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.

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3 min read

Clothiers Buy Prime Germantown Office Building

By Chris Clothier on Wed, Sep 25, 2019

The Clothier family business typically buys hundreds of houses each year, and now manages 5,600 of them in Memphis and six other cities for clients who invest as landlords.

But on Wednesday, Sept. 25, the Clothiers made a different kind of purchase. They closed on one of Germantown’s premier office buildings.

The plan is to make 1900 Exeter – also known as the Ezon Building – the new headquarters for their growing business, Memphis Invest. (The name will change to REI Nation next year; the acronym stands for Real Estate Investors.)

Kent Clothier, his wife Sherry and sons Chris and Brett paid $6.1 million to Israeli-based Faropoint Ventures for the 37,275-square-foot building. The brick, two-story structure was built in 1987.

“We had an opportunity to buy a building in Germantown,” Kent Clothier said. “We’re a fourth-generation family in Germantown. My dad started there in 1982. We live there and the opportunity came up. We’d been looking at that building for many years. Made an offer and negotiated.”

Memphis Invest will move from Cordova where it inhabits three of four small office buildings it owns near Agricenter International: 134, 130, 124 and 118 Timber Creek Drive.

The 1900 Exeter building has been 95% occupied with a handful of tenants. As their leases end, Memphis Invest will gradually move in and fill much of the building.

The company will move about 100 employees who work in eight departments: renovation, purchasing, sales, administrative, closing, information technology, property management and customer service.

Memphis Invest plans to spend several hundred thousand dollars renovating the property, especially the unusually large lobby with its atrium and skylight, other common areas and landscaping.

Construction contractor Chamberlain & McCreery, which renovates many of the houses Memphis Invest and its client-investors purchase, will make the improvements to 1900 Exeter, too.

“All this will be redone,” Chris Clothier said while pointing to overgrown bushes that block some sunlight from hitting ground-floor windows. “The trees are staying but all the bushes are coming out to create a green area. The canopy will be brought up so it’s healthier and you can see the building from the street.”

Every week, clients and prospective clients visit Memphis Invest headquarters. The clients will gain more confidence that the Clothiers will keep their rental houses well maintained if the company’s headquarters looks good, Chris Clothier said.

The Clothiers are basically telling clients, “I’m going to take care of your house the way I took care of my building,” he said.

Faropoint Ventures has gradually been selling off its retail and office holdings in the Memphis area while buying more and more industrial properties.

“We’ve been growing our industrial transaction business,” said Brian Califf, who represents Faropoint as executive vice president at NAI Saig Co.

“Their fund dictated a switch over from where they used to buy office and retail to strictly buying industrial,” Califf said.

Faropoint Ventures purchased 1900 Exeter about five years ago.

The building, in need of some updates, may be categorized as Class B, but the location is “Class A,” Califf said.

Germantown Municipal Park is directly across Exeter. Nearby are the U.S. Post Office, library, municipal center, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and many other stores and restaurants.

“For the Germantown core, there’s not many multi-story Germantown office buildings it competes with,” Califf said. 

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5 min read

Single Family Renters More Likely to Stay in Place

By Chris Clothier on Fri, Nov 15, 2013

A new survey found that 80% of single-family tenants were pleased with their property management. Single family home tenants are 18 percent more likely than apartment tenants to stay in their current homes five years or longer, suggesting that demand for single family homes, the fastest growing rental category, will be more stable than multifamily demand, according to a new national opinion survey released today by Premier Property Management Group.  

One of every four (26%) single family tenant plans to stay in place five years or more, compared to one out of five apartment dwellers (22%), according to a new national survey of renters by ORC International for Premier Property Management.  Founded in 1938, ORC International is a leading global market research firm and since 2007 has conducted the CNN|ORC International poll.

Stronger Ratings for SFR Property Management

One factor contributing to single family stability could be high marks renters give the quality of single family property management.  Some 80 percent of tenants in single family rentals said their property management was good or excellent compared to only 63 percent of apartment renters One out of four apartment dwellers (26%) rated their management as only adequate,

"With the emergence of the single family rental option, American families have a new housing choice that brings them the aspects of associated with owning their own homes important to families such as living space, privacy, safe neighborhoods and the sense of community— without the cost and risks of homeownership.  Single family rentals can be found in virtually every community today and more and more families are choosing single family rentals either as a temporary stop on the road to becoming homeowners or as a permanent solution to their housing needs," said Chris Clothier, director of sales & marketing and partner of Premier Property Management. 

Half of Renters Plan to Buy

Over half, 52 percent, of renters, including 60 percent of single family renters and 44 percent of apartment dwellers, said they anticipate becoming homeowners in the next five years.  Families with three or more members (64%) and children under 13 (69%) were more likely to become homeowners than the 43 percent who don't plan to become owners.

Clothier said near term interest in becoming homeowners among single family tenants reflects the new roles single family rentals are fulfilling as a stepping stone to homeownership for first-time buyers and as a sanctuary for large numbers of families displaced by foreclosures but who plan to buy again when they can afford to do so.

Rental Lifestyle, not Financing, Keeps Renters from Homeownership

Despite reports that difficulties getting financing are keeping many U.S. renters from becoming homeowners, the survey found that the inability to get a mortgage ranks only third of among the reasons renters don't plan to become homeowners. Among those who do not anticipate becoming homeowners (43 percent of all renters), 29 percent say they can't get a mortgage.  More renters report that they don't want to buy a home because they enjoy being renters (40%) or they simply don't want to be homeowners (39%).

Short term turnover rates for both multifamily and single family rentals over the next two years are 56 percent for multifamily and 59 percent for single family rentals. Apartments typically experience an annual 50 to 60 percent tenant turnover.

The survey also found:

  • Single family renters make more money and are nearly twice as likely to have children as apartment dwellers.  Median income for a single family renter is $75-100,000 (66%) versus $50,000-75000 (51%) for a multifamily tenant. Single family households are larger; some 65 percent have three or more members compared to 32 percent of apartment households.  Some 63 percent of single family households include children; only 34 percent of apartment renters have children living with them.
  • Most single family tenants are older, aged 35-44 (53%) compared to 14-34 (46%) and 65+ (61%) for apartment dwellers. 
  • Compared to apartment dwellers, single family renters value neighborhood features important to children, such as parks and playgrounds (65% to 71%), good schools (72% to 82%) and safe neighborhoods (97% to 98%).

The survey is available online at http://www.memphisinvest.com/national-renter-survey-2013 
and http://www.premierpropertymemphis.com/national-renter-survey-2013.

Methodology

This report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among two national probability samples, which, when combined, consists of 1,006 adults, 505 men and 501 women 18 years of age and older, living in the continental United States.  Interviewing for this CARAVAN® Survey was completed on January 10-13, 2013.  656 interviews were from the landline sample and 350 interviews from the cell phone sample.

All CARAVAN® interviews are conducted using ORC International's (ORC) computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system.  The CARAVAN® landline-cell combined sample is a dual frame sampling design.  This means that the sample is drawn from two independent non-overlapping sample frames—one for landlines and one for cell phones.

About Premier Property Management Group
Premier Property Management Group was formed in Memphis, Tennessee by the Clothier family in 2009 and has grown to manage assets in value exceeding $150 million and consisting of 1,700 properties in two Top 20 U.S. Cities.  The purpose of founding Premier Property Management Company was to replace the below average property management options for real estate investors buying investment property in Memphis, Tennessee and Dallas, Texas. High quality property management companies providing exceptional customer service simply did not exist. Starting from the ground up, the management company has grown into a leader in developing processes and systems for providing outstanding customer service, seamless accountability and transparent communication.  Premier Property Management Group also mentors new property management companies and entrepreneurs entering the property management field.

About REI Nation, GP & Dallas Invest, GP
Both companies were formed to offer real estate investors a passive investment opportunity in two of the top U.S. markets for property investment.  Premier Property Management Group offers management services to the clients of each company along with other real estate investors.  Serving over 670 clients worldwide, REI Nation, GP and Dallas Invest, GP complete over 400 property acquisitions, renovations and long-term rental placements each year and Premier Property Management Group is on pace to have $250 million in assets under management by July 1, 2014.

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1 min read

Report Deflates Bubble Talk With Subdued Housing Forecast

By Chris Clothier on Thu, Jun 27, 2013

Recent double-digit, year-over-year price increases are set to ease later this year and slow even more in 2014 in a more sustainable alignment with earnings.

In a more liberal forecast than other real estate outlooks, Capital Economics says the pace of year over year home price gains will slow from the current 10 to 12 percent to 8 percent this year, but get halved to 4 percent in 2014.

How so? By three measures.

Double-digit price gains out of the housing recovery gate were never sustainable. While housing remains under valued, housing bubble talk is premature, but the recent pace of price gains isn't sustainable. If prices continue rising at 12 percent, year-over-year, housing will be over valued relative to rents in the next few months and relative to incomes in early 2015. 

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2 min read

REI Nation Sees Few Limits to Growth

By Chris Clothier on Fri, May 31, 2013

Though being acknowledged by national organizations can be a thrill, the real honor comes from being recognized by your neighbors and peers, according to REI Nation GP partner and co-owner Chris Clothier.

Chris Clothier and Brett Clothier at Memphis Invest, the largest bulk buyer of real estate in Shelby County

Clothier got some of that recognition with a win at Memphis Business Journal’s Small Business Awards. REI Nation took home the Small Business of the Year Award in the 25-60 employee category.


“We receive a lot of attention and accolades from outside of Memphis, including being named to the Inc. 500/5000 list last year. We were even featured in a recent business book by a well-known author and business speaker,” said Clothier. “But none of that really compares to other local businessmen and women recognizing your team for all the hard work they put in to build this company. That is what makes this award very special.”
REI Nation has bold goals for the coming years.

Clothier and his partners plan to extend their real estate operation into two more cities soon and within five years plan to manage 5,000 single-family homes in up to four cities.

REI Nation is well on its way. In 2012, the company was the largest bulk buyer of real estate in Shelby County and one of the top 50 nationwide, according to RealtyTrac. 

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2 min read

What Next For Housing? 6 Americans' Concerns As Debates Loom

By Chris Clothier on Mon, Nov 5, 2012

With the first presidential debate of the 2012 election set to kick off Wednesday, Americans may soon get a clearer picture of where President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney stand on housing and a better sense of the policies that they might implement.

The 11 million people whose mortgages are underwater and the 9 million who have received foreclosure notices since the housing crisis began are sure to pay close attention to the candidates' proposals. But sharp interest in their plans won't stop there: Other large swaths of voters, including homebuilders, Realtors and investors, are also holding their breath.

To get a sense of their concerns, AOL Real Estate spoke to six Americans from different backgrounds who have a whole lot riding on the next administration's approach to housing. Click through our gallery to learn about the changes that they are hoping for in the next presidential term. 

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1 min read

REI Nation Spent $3.1 Million In Redevelopment

By Chris Clothier on Wed, Oct 31, 2012

REI Nation, a single-family rental real estate investment services firm, sold 164 homes during the third quarter and spent $3.1 million with 58 local small businesses completing redevelopment of those properties. Those companies collectively employ approximately 250 workers.

The 164 homes represent a 166 percent increase from the third quarter of 2011 for the company, which was recently recognized on the Inc. 500/5000 list of Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. Of the 164 properties sold in Q3, 127 had fully complete renovations by the end of the period.

High cost items contributed heavily to the $3.1 million spent redeveloping properties, with 42 percent of the properties receiving new roofs, 54 percent receiving new water heaters, 57 percent receiving new air conditioning units, and 47 percent receiving new furnaces. In addition, smaller cost items such as replacing flooring, interior and exterior repair and painting, and lawn beautification were also factors in Q3’s redevelopment costs.

REI Nation reported working with 527 individual real estate investors from 41 states and six countries as of the end of September. The company is managing 1,476 single-family homes in Memphis and Dallas with a market value of approximately $134 million. Dallas is the company’s newest market, having been opened under the brand Dallas Invest this past spring.

The company expects fourth quarter results to show more than $13 million in private redevelopment funds spent in Memphis, and an additional $1.2 million spent in redevelopment in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in 2012. 

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2 min read

Single-family Rental Houses Draw Millions Impacted By Foreclosure

By Chris Clothier on Fri, Oct 26, 2012

'Conscientious People' Coming Out of a Crisis

Many of these single-family renters are like Jacobs' tenants, whom, he said, are "fairly conscientious people that just went through a foreclosure crisis" and want to retain some semblance of homeownership.

People like Michael Williams, who lives in Memphis, Tenn. When he couldn't find enough work, he was forced to sell his home in a short sale in 2011 for $110,000 -- nearly $40,000 less than he owed on his mortgage. Now he lives in a single-family rental, which costs him $1,025 a month. He said that he feels "blessed" to still be able to reside in a home of his own close to his old neighborhood.

"I'm partial to a home," he said. "I have my own privacy, and [I also] have grandkids."

Williams rents from REI Nation, an "REO-to-rental company" that purchases homes in Dallas, Memphis and Phoenix and flips them to "mom-and-pop" investors. REO is real estate parlance for bank-owned properties.

"They're looking for stability and still have pride of ownership," said Chris Clothier, a partner with REI Nation, of its tenants.

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1 min read

Housing Crisis Turns Some Ex-Homeowners Into Lifelong Renters

By Chris Clothier on Thu, Oct 18, 2012

You couldn't pay Mark Williams to own a home again.

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1 min read

Real Estate Investors Plan To Purchase More Homes In U.S.

By Chris Clothier on Fri, Oct 12, 2012

Almost two-thirds of U.S. residential real estate investors plan to buy as many as or more homes in the next 12 months than they have in the past year even as prices rise, according to a survey released today.

About 39 percent of active property investors intend to step up their purchases, while 26 percent expect to buy the same number in the coming year, according to a survey conducted by ORC International, a Princeton, New Jersey-based research firm. About 30 percent of investors plan to reduce their purchases, the study showed. 

Rising rents are benefiting the 28.1 million U.S. residential real estate investors -- people who own property as landlords rather than as occupants -- Dorkin said. Demand for rentals has risen as people with damaged credit or lack of money for down payments stay out of the home buying market. 

This article was originally posted by John Gittlesohn at Bloomberg Businessweek.

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