Everything You Need to Know About the 2025 Housing Market

Summary

Real Estate Rookie Podcast – Episode Summary: "Everything You Need to Know About the 2025 Housing Market"

Release Date: January 22, 2025
Hosts: Ashley Kehr and Tony J. Robinson
Guest: Dave Meyer

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Introduction

In this episode of the Real Estate Rookie podcast, hosts Ashley Kehr and Tony J. Robinson welcome Dave Meyer from the Maine BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Dave shares his comprehensive market report on the 2025 housing landscape, offering invaluable insights for rookie investors aiming to navigate the evolving real estate market.

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Housing Affordability Outlook

Dave Meyer opens the discussion by addressing the critical issue of housing affordability in 2025. He presents a rather cautious outlook, emphasizing that significant improvements in affordability are unlikely in the near future.

Ashley Kehr [01:15]: "Dave, in your market report, you assert that you simply don't see a clear path to the affordability levels to recover anytime soon. Soon. Direct quote."

Dave Meyer [01:37]: "I don't see how we get better housing affordability in the US in any significant way."

Dave breaks down the three pillars of housing affordability:

1. Housing Prices: Expectation of housing prices remaining relatively flat with no major corrections or crashes.
2. Mortgage Rates: Contrary to widespread hopes, mortgage rates continue to climb, defying predictions of a downward trend in the near term.
3. Wages: While wages are increasing, the growth is gradual and may not sufficiently enhance affordability within the short term.

Despite these challenges, Dave remains optimistic about the overall real estate market's potential.

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Investing Strategies for Rookies in 2025

Addressing concerns about the current market conditions, Dave reassures rookie investors that real estate remains a viable and lucrative investment avenue.

Dave Meyer [03:23]: "No, not at all. I think that quite the opposite... I'm very excited and bullish about real estate in general."

He emphasizes the importance of adjusting expectations and strategies to align with the current market dynamics. Rather than seeking immediate, high cash flow returns, Dave advocates for a long-term perspective, targeting investments that offer stability and potential appreciation over time.

Dave Meyer [15:46]: "My personal goal is to try, and I call it like a 10% rule, I want to get my total return in that first year near 10%."

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Market Selection and Growth Indicators

Choosing the right market is pivotal for successful real estate investing. Dave outlines key factors to consider:

1. Job Growth: Markets with robust job creation tend to drive demand for housing, pushing up property values.
2. Population Growth: Increasing population correlates with higher demand for both rental and owned properties.
3. Affordability: Identifying markets where housing remains affordable relative to income levels can offer substantial long-term gains.

Dave Meyer [19:33]: "Buffalo is a perfect example of that. In that Zillow article they said that there are two new jobs for every home that's being built in Buffalo. That's like Econ 101. There's going to be demand for housing and they're not building enough of it. That's going to push up prices."

Dave highlights Buffalo as a standout market, lauding its affordability and strong job growth, making it an attractive option for both long-term and short-term rental investments.

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Short-term vs. Long-term Rentals

The podcast delves into the nuances of short-term versus long-term rental strategies.

• Short-term Rentals: Tony observes a saturation in major markets, leading to diminished revenues due to excessive competition. The sweet spot lies in mid-sized destinations where competition is manageable.

  Tony J. Robinson [21:08]: "We're seeing revenues get pinched in some of the markets that are just massive... where there's more opportunity are some of those mid-size Airbnb destinations."

• Long-term Rentals: Dave points to the growing demand in suburban areas, where renters tend to stay longer, reducing vacancy rates and ensuring stable income streams.

  Dave Meyer [27:43]: "Suburban areas are growing a lot faster and are more in demand for both rentals and home prices."

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Identifying Hidden Value in Properties

For rookie investors, uncovering hidden value can lead to significant returns. Dave advises looking beyond surface metrics:

1. Understand Market Dynamics: Analyze economic indicators like job and population growth.
2. Consult Experts: Engage with property managers to gauge realistic rent growth projections.
3. Assess Supply Pipelines: Monitor construction permits and new builds to evaluate future competition.

Dave Meyer [16:23]: "They are a little bit hidden. If just go and look at Zillow and are like looking at the price and the estimated rent, you're probably going to find yourself in a position saying what I hear a lot of people say right now, which is that there are no deals."

Utilizing BiggerPockets' resources, including insights from analysts like Austin Wolf, can enhance market analysis and decision-making processes.

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New Construction vs. Existing Properties

Dave explores the current opportunities in new construction, which presents a unique advantage due to builder incentives amidst high profits.

Dave Meyer [40:02]: "Builders are making huge profits... they're willing to eat a little bit of that massive profit to incentivize people to buy."

Advantages of New Construction:

• Lower Maintenance Costs: Brand new properties require minimal capital expenditures in the short to medium term.
• Builder Incentives: Rate buy-downs, price concessions, and other incentives make new builds financially attractive.
• Inventory Availability: Builders continue to produce high-quality homes in desirable locations, addressing the scarcity of existing homes.

Risks:

• Market Saturation in Certain Areas: Not all markets have a healthy demand for new constructions.
• Location Quality: The appeal of new developments depends heavily on their location and surrounding infrastructure.

Dave Meyer [43:34]: "It's going to be, you know, landlording with Training wheels, because you're not going to have a lot of the maintenance issues that I think you get."

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Economic Uncertainties and Policy Impacts

Dave addresses the uncertainties stemming from potential policy changes under the new administration, which could influence the housing market through tariffs, tax breaks, and other economic policies.

Dave Meyer [46:35]: "I expect things to change and we're going to have to see what that means for investors over the, you know, probably in the first half of 2025."

He underscores the importance of patience and adaptability, advising investors to stay informed about policy developments and their implications on the real estate sector.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Dave Meyer encouraging rookie investors to leverage available resources, build strong teams, and maintain flexibility in their investment strategies. Emphasizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, Dave and the hosts advocate for personalized strategies tailored to individual goals and market conditions.

Dave Meyer [33:18]: "Like the most successful real estate investor I know is James Danard and he only invests here, right? So like people can clearly make it work. It just depends on like what your skill set is and what you're trying to accomplish."

Ashley and Tony reiterate the importance of continuous learning and engagement with the BiggerPockets community to stay ahead in the dynamic real estate landscape of 2025.

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Stay Tuned:
For more insights and strategies, join Dave Meyer and the hosts at the upcoming Momentum Virtual Summit, running from February 11th to April 1st. Engage in live Q&A sessions and connect with real estate experts to further enhance your investment journey.

Visit biggerpockets.com/summit25 for more information.

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This summary aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode, capturing the essence of the discussions and key takeaways for aspiring real estate investors.

Transcript

[Ashley Kerr]

Are you still trying to figure out how you're going to take advantage of the real estate market in 2025? Over here at BiggerPockets, we are optimistic about what 2025 holds for those who are disciplined with their buy box and strategic with their deals. And today, Dave Meyer from the Maine BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast is here to walk us through what 2025 might hold for rookie investors. He actually wrote a report breaking down all of his insights and strategies that you can download and read at BiggerPockets. Do slash resources.

[Tony J. Robinson]

And today, Dave is going to walk us through how a rookie investor can navigate this new era. So we'll cover the outlook for affordability, we'll talk about market selection and supply indicators, and finally, we'll talk about how to take advantage of value add investing strategies in 2025.

[Ashley Kerr]

This is the real Estate Rookie Podcast and I'm Ashley Kerr.

[Dave Meyer]

And I'm Tony J. Robinson.

[Tony J. Robinson]

And welcome to the podcast where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And I am super excited to welcome none other than Dave Meyer. So, Dave, welcome to the show, brother. Happy to have you, man.

[Dave Meyer]

Thank you for having me back. I'm excited to be here.

[Ashley Kerr]

Dave, in your market report, you assert that you simply don't see a clear path to the affordability levels to recover anytime soon. Soon. Direct quote. Can you give us a brief overview of what you're seeing from an affordability standpoint and what kind of supplies perspective are you taking and why are you taking this stance?

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, I'll just start by saying I hope I'm wrong about this because I don't think it's great. Even though for those of us who own real estate, it's been a great, you know, a great run. I, I don't really see how we get better housing affordability in the US in any significant way. It might get better a little bit, but I think if you just break down sort of the three pillars of housing affordability, which are housing prices, mortgage rates, and people's wages, their, their median income, you can look at each of them and none of them seem like they're going to break in our direction in any significant way. So housing prices, they might be somewhat flat this year in my perspective, but I don't think we're going to see any sort of huge correction or crash that's going to make homes more affordable anytime soon. Mortgage rates, everyone's been calling them, for them to go down, they just keep going up. And although I do think the long term trend is downward, that this is proving more elusive than I think anyone would hope. And wages are going up, so that's really good. But that, that one takes a long time. We'd need to see wages go up for quite a long time for affordability to get better. And so I think we're, you know, coming out of this really stuck period. And I'm hopeful that the market's going to start to pick up, at least in terms of transaction volume and there's going to be some more inventory. But I don't really think we're going back to some of the times we saw in the 2010s where it was really quite affordable in a historical perspective to buy real estate.

[Ashley Kerr]

Dave, before we go further into the episode to kind of get it out of the way, is anything we're going to go over today mean that a rookie should not invest in 2025?

[Dave Meyer]

No, not at all. I think that quite the opposite. If you read my report, I'm very excited and bullish about real estate in general. I think the affordability thing makes it less obvious to people, but there are still so many benefits to investing in real estate that hopefully we'll be talking about.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Dave, just one quick follow up piece to that and I know you did like a full breakdown of your, your whole market analysis for 2025. I believe it was episode 1065 of the Real estate podcast or Ricky's if you want to go check that out, episode 1065. But I guess just let me ask Dave, I know you're still bullish on, on real estate, but do you believe that maybe investors need to alter their strategy as they're going into 2025. Like we've interviewed a lot of folks recently who are doing rent by the rooms or co living, student housing. We've interviewed people that have done sober living homes and you know, assisted living facilities. Like do you think that that's the future or are there still opportunities in the traditional single family or small, multifamily long term rental space?

[Dave Meyer]

The short answer is I think there's still opportunity in some of the more traditional or maybe less creative ways to be in real estate. I do think the tactics and strategies do need to change. But my opinion for most people, for the majority of rookies or people who are investing, is that what really needs to happen is a shift in expectations. We were sort of in this period during 2013-2022 where basically everything went right for real estate. Like you couldn't have designed a more perfect time to be a real estate investor. And some of those things have changed, affordability being one of the big things. But all the other things I still think are really good. And so I still believe that if you have appropriate expectations which are that real estate can make you very wealthy and can replace your income over a period of time that is probably closer to 8 or 10 or 12 years that I don't think has changed. And you can still invest in short term rentals or long term rentals if you have that time horizon. If you're trying to make a deal have excellent cash flow immediately you're probably going to have to go to some of those more unique or creative approaches that you were just mentioning Tony. But that's never personally been my approach. Not that there's one way right or wrong. I think it just depends on your, your goals.

[Ashley Kerr]

What is something that a rookie investor should be doing today to actually look, look ahead to analyze a market, you know, reviewing your port obviously. But what are some other action items you know, a rookie could take to feel more confident investing into 2025 buying.

[Dave Meyer]

Deals today the numbers aren't going to be super sexy like they were, you know, five or 10 years ago where you're going to get like an 8% cash on cash return from an on market deal. If you do a burr you're not going to be able to take out 100% of your equity. Almost certainly it might happen but I think and the way I approach real estate these days is looking for deals that are going to be very low risk today. So to me that's usually deals that will at least offer break even cash flow. And I'm talking about real cash flow, not you know, I'm sure you guys do a great job educating people but that's after all expenses Capex planned for everything, you know, really actually generating some break even cash flow. And then I want to look for upside. So to me that can come in multiple formats. I think the most obvious one and the one that's sort of supported by the economics and data is one that's going to have long term rent growth. I think there's like a really good case that rents are going to climb again in the next couple of years and so looking for places that are doing solid today, they're still a good investment but are going to really that acceleration and performance is going to pick up over the next few years. I think there's opportunity for what I would say is like zoning upside. So any place where you can add an additional unit, turn it into an Airbnb add additional unit and turn it into a duplex, whatever it is, something like that. Places that have potential for value add is upside. And so there's different ways to create this additional value. But I think you need in this day and age to find a way to create that value. Whether it's through the stuff Tony, you were mentioning, which is sort of a more complicated and it's not complicated, just a more creative business plan. Or you could take like the simple business plan and just you know, be a little bit more active in your investments.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Yeah. And Dave, I love that you, you talk about reducing your downside while also looking for opportunities to increase your upside. And you can go the traditional single family long term rental route. You can look into the small multi family, you can look at the medium term rent by the room. There's a lot of different strategies but I think for all of the Rickies that are listening, you just got to pick the strategy that makes the most sense for you. And actually I think all of us are participating in the, the momentum summit that's coming up from bigger pockets where it's what I think like 1112 weeks something to that effect of real estate investors from different niches and different strategies all talking about what they're doing and why they believe that strategy still makes sense in 2025.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. So I'm super excited about momentum. I think it's going to be a great opportunity for everyone to not just hear from experts but also connect with one another, which is super cool. I am talking about a lot about macroeconomics. Shocking, I know but for some reason people like hearing about that and I will talk about as much as people want to listen. So I will, I'm doing first just I'm actually doing a session on this like upside style investing because I think it's really important for people, for us too as like real estate educators to sort of normalize what deals look like today. And like that these amazing deals and stuff you see on social media is not always realistic. So I'm going to do one of that talking about market, just macroeconomic conditions and then I'm joining a panel to talk about market and deal finding. So all stuff super important in this year and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I started working on my slides earlier today.

[Ashley Kerr]

Well, Tony and I have not gotten that far yet. We will start working on ours and we'll also be presenting about partnerships and building a team. We're going to Take a short break. Uh, if you haven't already, make sure you check out Real estate rookie on YouTube. We are trying to hit 100,000 subscribers so if you're not already subscribed please go and check it out.

[Dave Meyer]

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[Dave Meyer]

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[Ashley Kerr]

Okay, we're back from our short break and we are here with Dave going over his State of 2025 list that he has shared at biggerpockets.com/resource. So in the report you recommend that investors aim for at least break even cash flow. And we kind of talked about this a little bit, but can you talk about why that's something you chose for 2025 and what even that looks like for an investor?

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, I, I think to me, you know, this is a debate, right? I'm sure you hear everyone say about break even cash flow or should you focus on it? To me, I don't really focus on cash flow, honestly all that much. But the market is really uncertain and so my main goal in any deal I buy right now is sort of capital preservation. In other words, I don't want to lose money. You know, I want to make sure that my, my investment, my principal, the money I'm putting in is at least solid. And then that's why I look for upside like then in the future, in a year, now, two years, I want that deal to really start performing.

[Ashley Kerr]

Let's break that down real quick for a rookie. So for example, you're looking for some appreciation in the property and then another kind of growth could be that you're able to increase the rents but your mortgage payment is staying the same because you've got a fixed rate. Is there anything else that you're looking for that further down the road? It's not a break even but you're actually generating cash flow or making money off the property for sure.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. And just to be clear, I don't, I'm not going to buy a deal where my expectation is that I don't make a return in the first year. The break even for me is really on the cash flow piece because if you can do that, even if you get a 0% cash on cash return in a normal market, you're going to get, you know, 3% appreciation. That's just like a normal year and you're paying down your mortgage usually gets you 2 or 3% cash on cash return. If you not cash on cash gives you a return and tax Benefits are going to allow you to keep some of your, that additional money. So you're usually getting a 7 or 8% return even if you're not generating cash flow. My personal goal is to try, and I call it like a 10% rule, I want to get my total return in that first year near 10%. So when I add up all those things, my cash on cash return, my return from appreciation, my return from paying off my loan, like all those things together, if that gets me close to 10%, I like buying that deal because that's not a good year in real estate and it's still better than the stock market. So that's how, that's how I like personally want to think about is like that my worst deals are still going to be better than anything else that I can do with my money. So. And then as cash flow grows, you know, as we've all seen, there are years when real estate home prices go up a lot. Then you're like putting yourself in a position where you can capitalize on those upside events that no one really knows when they're going to happen, but they definitely happen. You sort of have to like put your chips in the, you know, you have to play a few hands to be able to, to hit those pots from, from time to time.

[Tony J. Robinson]

And I guess kind of pulling on that same thread. Dave, right. You talk about, you know, putting your chips in, be being able to strike when the, when the iron's hot. You talked a little bit about in your report about finding hidden value in properties that have maybe been sitting on the market for a long time. And I think for a lot of rookies, when they see a listing go stagnant on the mls, naturally they think that okay, something must be wrong, so I shouldn't even look at that deal. So for a new investor who's, who's just kind of learning how to analyze properties, what are some specific things they should look out for to identify these kind of hidden value opportunities?

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, I think that that's the main thing is like they are a little bit hidden. If just go and look at Zillow and are like looking at the price and the estimated rent, you're probably going to find yourself in a position saying what I hear a lot of people say right now, which is that there are no deals. So I think you need to first understand your market and what potential upside there is. So if you're in a market that's really solid and growing quickly, there's multiple ways to do that. So when I'm Analyzing markets. The main thing I want to look for is like tailwinds, just things that are going to help my business as much as possible. And for me that's mostly economic and population growth. If you want to boil it down to one thing, I would say job growth is like the most important factor because that's going to help push up property prices. But you don't really want to only rely on that. And so I think when you look at deals, you should be really trying to understand what's happening with rent. The macroeconomic job stuff will help you long term, but you need to understand like if rents are going to go up realistically in the next couple of years, and you do that by talking to property managers who are going to give you an honest assessment, you can do that by using some of the tools we have on bigger pockets. And if you want a little bonus homework assignment, I think you do that by looking at supply information. Looking at how many rental properties are for are available in a market and how many they're building is really, really important. And it sounds hard, but it's not just Google how many, you know, like how many new buildings in your market and you'll see how much competition you're going to face because that's sort of what's slowing down rent growth right now. There's just too many apartments. And so I would really start looking at that for any particular market and then look at what is really selling because you know, I contribute to this problem. But there's this issue where we talk about a market like you know, LA or Seattle or Buffalo, whatever, and we say like, act like it's all one thing, but it's really not. In some markets you'll see a certain type of product. Like in certain markets starter homes are all the rage. In other markets, luxury homes are all the rage. And you really need to sort of identify what's working in your market to, to really see where the biggest upside is. Like in markets that I invest in, I'm pretty bullish on single family homes in good school districts right now because of the affordability challenges I mentioned earlier. I think there's just going to be demand from families to rent. People who would normally want to buy are going to choose to rent because it's more affordable. And so I think in these types of markets where there's good schools, we're going to see a lot of rent. And so those are the kind of things that's where I see upside in a certain market. But that's just an example you kind of have to do that analysis market by market.

[Ashley Kerr]

So what markets should we be looking into for 2025? I did see that Zillow came out with the top markets of 2025 and for the second year in a row Buffalo is listed, which can be a good, good and bad thing.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, we were, we were talking, I went on Drunk Real estate yesterday and we were talking about how, how lucky you are to be riding the wave. Or maybe you're just buying so much real estate you've made it so, so hot that no one else can buy. You know, I think this is different for everyone. For me, I really like my like a long term real estate thesis is about affordability. I just think like, you know, it's really hard for people to buy homes and I think markets that are more affordable, that have job growth, are going to be good ones. And you know, Buffalo is a perfect example of that. In that Zillow article they said that there are two new jobs for every home that's being built in Buffalo. That's like, like Econ 101. There's going to be demand for housing and they're not building enough of it. That's going to push up prices. But Buffalo is still very affordable on, on a national, relative to national prices. So like those types of places I think are going to do well. We see those in the Northeast, like in western New York in the Midwest and in places in the Southeast. That's for long term rentals. You know Tony, you could tell me better than short term rentals. It's not really my area of expertise but I, I think those type of markets are going to continue to do well. And I don't know Tony, maybe the, maybe the whole, the premise holds, right? Like people want to vacation in affordable areas. I don't know. But sometimes I think maybe it's the opposite. Like there's more people go to more luxury style locations.

[Tony J. Robinson]

What we're kind of seeing on the, on the short term side and you know, I get a lot of my data from, from Air DNA and I think you've chatt with Jamie Lane, they're like chief economist over there before as well. Dave. But we're seeing revenues get pinched in some of the markets that are just massive. You know, the markets with like tens of thousands of airbnbs, we're seeing revenues kind of decline in some of those markets and where there seems to be more opportunity are some of those mid size Airbnb destinations where you're not competing with 50,000 other Airbnbs but maybe you're competing with 1,000 or two or 3,000 other properties. So it's trying to find that, that sweet spot, much like it is on the, on the long term rental side.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I, my, my short term rentals, it's fine. It's not doing great. I like pulled it up and it just looks like every one of my neighbors within, you know, a mile has decided to be a short term, it's in a ski town. So like, like it makes sense. But. Yeah, yeah, I think it's the same kind of thing. Like you just need to find an imbalance in supply and demand. Like the, the fundamentals are the same where you just need to find place where people want to go and there's not too much competition for you.

[Ashley Kerr]

What about for like type of property or amenities? Is there anything that's trending and maybe we'll start with you, Tony, on the short term rental side of like going into 2025. Like these are the, you know, know I've heard of unique stays and things like that. Like what's trending for short term rentals in 2025? And then Dave, maybe you can talk about like, are people wanting to live in townhouses? They want apartment buildings, they want single families. So Tony, let's start with you.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Yeah, I mean, you know, someone told me before that we're in the amenities arms race in the Airbnb industry.

[Dave Meyer]

And I, it's a good way to put it.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that, with that notion. I think in a lot of the more mature Airbnb markets, that's already happened. Right. They've already put in all of the amenities and now it's just like it really is just a question of supply and demand. Right. I think that's what's driving a lot of it in those more mature markets. But again, in those kind of smaller or mid sized markets, a lot of the maturity from an amenities perspective hasn't yet transpired in those places. So if you can be the first person in your city to add something like a, you know, a hot tub. A hot tub, an in ground pool, a sauna, a game room, a theater, those are maybe the amenities that will help make the difference. And EV charger, those are some of the amenities that might make a difference, but in some markets it's already happened. So, you know, adding that won't make that big of a difference.

[Ashley Kerr]

Tony, I have one follow up to that piece. What about like the hospitality piece? Are you seeing like a Shift in, you know, what's expected as far as, like, for example, I, when I went to Florida, I stayed in a condo and it was one roll of toilet paper, no shampoo, no conditioner. And it was like, not what I'm used to. And I usually stay at Airbnbs and definitely not a hotel. Like, do you see a shift in people wanting more of those little things where before you could get away with not really supplying anything and that was kind of the norm, but now that everyone's getting pickier with selection, is that something you're seeing or that's just me?

[Tony J. Robinson]

Yeah. I'll tell a quick backstory, then I answer the question. But I met a host who stayed at an Airbnb when she was growing up. Like, her family went back to the same vacation rental every summer. They stayed for a week and there was no cleaning service, so they had to clean that Airbnb themselves once they were done. That is so unheard of today that people wouldn't even book your property. Right. But because it was, you know, it was before Airbnb was even a thing. It was, it was just the norm. So I think nationally, the expectations of guests within Airbnbs has probably increased, obviously, as Airbnb has gained more popularity in the vacation rental space. But I will say it is very market dependent as well. And what's common in one city may not be super common in another city. And maybe I can get away with making you, you know, only giving you trash bags and no shampoo in this market, but in this other market, it's table stakes to even get in. So it is somewhat market dependent. You got to look at your comps and see what they're doing to make that decision.

[Ashley Kerr]

And then, Dave, what about for the long term rental market?

[Dave Meyer]

I was just thinking, Tony, like, there was a time in my life I would have cleaned the Airbnb to save some money. Not anymore. But there, there was probably a time.

[Ashley Kerr]

You know, what's funny is I was more thinking of being the next guest coming in. Would I want to stay in a property with just a random person cleaning it before? Like, you don't. It's not like a professional cleaner and have high expectations. So.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, yeah, that, that, that makes total sense. I, I wouldn't want to stay with an amateur cleaner, definitely. So we, we're talking about the long term market. I think it's a little bit different because there's just more demand for rental properties across any market. Like, there are people who are looking for more affordable options. There are people who are looking for luxury options. So there's more strategies available. But I do think you want to, like I was saying before, sort of like understand what products are in demand in your market. I think the big shift that's happened in real estate, at least over my career, it's kind of been like almost the opposite is now suburban areas are growing a lot faster and are more in demand for both rentals and home prices. When I first started investing in Denver, my whole theory was stupidly simple. I was like, I'm going to buy the thing closest to the center of the city that I can afford. Because like the city was just kind of like growing in these like circles. Now it's like, you know, sort of pockets of, of suburbia are becoming the hot new places. And that's a little bit harder to, to understand from an analysis perspective, but it does offer a really great opportunity if you know your market really well and you can sort of figure out which areas of suburbia are going to be really popular. The other thing I like about that is just generally renters, if you're renting to someone in, in suburban areas, they tend to stay longer. So you have lower vacancies, which, you know, everyone sort of overlooks. I did early in my investing career. But I think as you, as you evolve, you realize that vacancies are really what kill deals. And so having longer tenured tenants I think is really appealing.

[Tony J. Robinson]

So Dave, I want to circle back because you mentioned this earlier and I think it's an important piece. But when we talk about measuring supply and demand, because if there's, you know, economics one on one, right. If there's more supply than there is demand, then prices go down. If there's more demand than there is supply, then prices go up. Right. We all saw this with, with Lumber during COVID Right. So, so as a, as a long term rental investor, we know that we want to understand the supply and demand relationship. You mentioned that we can maybe just Google that. But I guess is there any other place that you found is like a tried and true source to actually get metrics to get KPIs on supply and demand within these different markets?

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, actually we're working on this in bigger pockets. So you can go to our resource hub. There's an analyst who works on my team, his name is Austin Wolf. And he, he's just like his whole job is figuring this out.

[Ashley Kerr]

So we actually had him on the episode to talk about how he moved based on analyzing a market.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, he's very good at this. And he just like digs into permit data and stuff. So you can check that out and go to biggerpockets.com markets. We have a lot of that there. But if you are a DIY kind of researcher or investor, I would recommend just getting familiar with websites like Fred, which is Federal reserve Bank of St. Louis, or there are sites like Statista or Y Charts. And you can look up this stuff super easily. It's all available. Like how many. The data sets I would look for are construction permits and construction starts. So you can just see how many homes are being built at any given time. And then. And demand is a little bit harder, but population growth is probably the easiest way to just track that and just see, you know, you can kind of eyeball it. You need to make sure that they're in a good relationship with each other. Because if you just look at demand, for example, everyone would be investing in Austin, Texas right now. Right. Like, people are moving there like crazy. But supply, there's just way too many apartments. We've seen they. Their rents went down 10% last year. Like, that's huge. And so I think it's just important to make sure that supply and demand are in an appropriate relationship. And it doesn't have to be some complex analysis. Just like get a sense of how many people are moving to area and are too many homes being built, too few homes being built or the right amount. And if you're in the right amount or too few, it's probably bodes well for home prices.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Just one, one quick follow up to that because we, we did an episode where each of us kind of picked a market. You know, we're saying like, hey, we're. We go next. What strategy? I picked Oklahoma City. Ashley, do you remember. Do you remember what city you picked?

[Ashley Kerr]

I either did Erie, Pennsylvania or I don't remember the other one I did.

[Dave Meyer]

You did Eerie on one we were on together.

[Ashley Kerr]

Yeah.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Okay. And then Dave, do you recall your city?

[Dave Meyer]

I like Pittsburgh. I did Oklahoma City for another one though too, because I like that one too. But I, I like Pittsburgh. It's the most affordable city in the whole world, apparently.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Wow. And the whole world.

[Fundrise]

Yeah.

[Dave Meyer]

They did this analysis of where's the most affordable home prices in the whole world. I forget who did this, but Pittsburgh always wins because housing prices are so cheap. But it's a, like a really good economy and people, there's all these like robotics jobs and universities and all this stuff, and people get paid really high salaries. So it's the. Out of every city in the world. It has the best like income to housing price relationship and I love that.

[Ashley Kerr]

Wasn't it like one of the best markets to flip in or something too?

[Dave Meyer]

Oh, really? It probably is, yeah.

[Ashley Kerr]

That there was something that came out like they tracked and the investors in that area that flipped houses had the best return out of the US Too, or something like that. Yeah.

[Dave Meyer]

I've never been to Pittsburgh, but I like the idea of it. And I think, you know, it depends on your strategy if you're going for more of an appreciation play. Like, I think places like Charlotte, you know, I like a lot of places in North Carolina I think are really good. South Carolina has a lot of good stuff going on to it. Places like Indianapolis are growing really quickly. So there are, there are pockets all over the country.

[Tony J. Robinson]

I think just the last comment I'll make on like the market selection piece, when, when we're looking at evaluating markets, regardless of what your strategy is, if you're long term, short term, midterm flipping, multifamily, whatever it may be, there's always kind of two sets of data that you should be looking at. There is the objective data about the market, which is just true for every single person that looks at that city. Right. If we look at the supply and demand data for okc, we're roughly going to see the same exact thing. Right. That is just the, the truth of that market. That is one data set that we should be looking at. But the other part of the equation when we talk about choosing markets is what is your personal goal and strategy as it relates to investing in real estate? Because there are some people like you, Dave, who are fine with maybe break even on the actual cash flow, but you're more concerned with can I get the appreciation, Can I get the tax benefits, am I getting the other elements? So for you as the investor, for you as the rookie, you've got to ask yourself, what are my motivations? And if push comes to shove, what is more important to me, do I want the cash flow or do I want the appreciation? If I had to pick one. And I think when you can marry the subjective part of that formula that's unique to you with the objective part of that formula which is unique to the city, that's how you start landing on what cities make the most sense for you. Because Ricky's. I'm going to tell you, there is no best city for every single person. What's best for me is different than what's best for Dave. It's different than what's best for Ashley. You've got to do that homework for yourself.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, I know. It's like so it's like very woo woo, but it's, there's no like right market. It's like the right market for you is really true. I mean, I use this example all the time, but I live in Seattle now. I don't invest here yet. But people are always saying Seattle is like a terrible market. Right? I think we all, I would say like the most successful real estate investor I know is James Danard and he only invests here, right? So like people can clearly make it work. It just depends on like what your skill set is and what you're trying to accomplish. And I also think, you know, we need to reiterate this as much as possible that you're probably going to waste time trying to find a perfect market and you should spend more time building a team and trying to learn a market that's going to impact your returns way more than finding some Goldilocks magical market that has everything going right for it.

[Ashley Kerr]

And we always talk about too how your first deal doesn't have to be a home run. It doesn't have to be the best deal or the best use of your capital at that time. And that's the same with the market selection. There's probably a lot of markets that would actually work for you with what you're trying to do. So yeah, don't focus on just finding that golden goose. But we have to take one more ad break and we will be right back with Dave.

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[Dave Meyer]

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[Ashley Kerr]

Okay, and welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. We are here with Dave. So Dave, you mentioned the report new construction, construction becoming more attractive for investors with builder incentives and competitive pricing. For a first time investor, what are some of the unique risks and maybe advantages of buying new construction versus existing properties?

[Dave Meyer]

This is one of the weirdest developments in the housing market I think in the last couple of years because for most investors I would never recommend this previously but but we're in this weird situation where builders are making huge profits. Since the beginning of the pandemic they've been making just massive profits and they want to keep going. And even though the market has changed a little bit, they're basically willing to eat a little bit of that massive profit to incentivize people to buy. And that often comes in the form of rate buy downs or other concessions. And so we're actually in a place where this is weird. But new construction on a national basis is cheaper than existing home sales right now, which is I think a really unique opportunity for the right type of investor. For me, because I'm someone who buys properties hoping to hold onto them for 10 to 15 years, I'm interested in this because I can buy a brand new home that's probably going to not have significant capital expenditures over the lifetime of my buy period. And I'm getting a lower mortgage rate. I'm probably still paying top dollar for the property. Don't get me. It's not all perfect, but there are things that I find attractive to this because I'm going to hold on to it long term, which is, is great. And there's also just a lot of inventory. Like if you try and buy a, an existing home right now, there's just not that many of them available. But builders have been building for a while and you can find really high quality homes in a lot of places right now. So I think it's just kind of an interesting thing to look at depending on your market. Not all markets have a lot of new construction. Some of them are in bad locations. I really, I'm not someone who likes buying in like cookie cutter neighborhoods on the, you know, outskirts of town. But you know, when you find good developments or urban infill opportunities, I think it's worth looking at.

[Ashley Kerr]

Yeah, we had someone on that only did new development where they weren't actually the builder, but they were buying new development and they'd put their deposit down in like phase one. And by the time, you know, the, the builder got to phase three, like the equity they built up and what these builders are charging for phase three, like they were just banking so much equity in their property by getting in on phase one to see what those properties would sell in phase three is really interesting. And they did a house hack for a year, then moved on to the next one.

[Dave Meyer]

That's smart. Yeah, it's good. And I think it's important to remember how the business model of builders is different. And if you're buying someone's existing home that they live in, they're probably going to be very hesitant to cut price. Most of these people don't have to move. They'll move when the right opportunity is there. Builders have to move inventory. They build a house, they need to get that off their books. They need their revenue back to go on and build the next house. And their business is speed. And so if you can be like your, to your point, if you can understand their business model like Ash, the previous guest had, like where you can figure out the right way to get a deal on a, on a new construction property, that could be a really good win, especially for rookies who have low risk appetite. You know, there's always risk in real estate, but buying a new property, it's going to be, you know, landlording with Training wheels, because you're not going to have a lot of the maintenance issues that I think you get. Like when I started buying properties that were built, like, during the gold rush.

[Tony J. Robinson]

I think the other piece you did, if you talk about them wanting to move the inventory, but they also need to make sure that they're protecting their sales prices. Right? Because, you know, if a builder has, you know, five, ten phases of a subdivision, they can't decrease the price at phase six, because now they're setting their subs up for failure on phase 7, 8, 9, and 10. So that's why they give a lot of those discounts on, you know, hey, we're going to. We'll help you buy down your rate or we'll give you credits, whatever it may be. We actually bought our primary residence, and when we bought that, it was from a builder in a new subdivision. And they actually paid off one of my student loans to help us buy the house.

[Dave Meyer]

What?

[Tony J. Robinson]

Yeah, they paid off one of our student loans, help us buy the house.

[Dave Meyer]

Did you dangle that or did they just come up with that on their own?

[Tony J. Robinson]

The mortgage broker that I was working with was like, hey, you know, because, you know, we're trying to qualify for, like, this CALHFA thing. And they're like, hey, we think this might make the most sense. We're just going to pay off this loan. It was, you know, it was a small balance, but they paid off one of my student loans to help me get into that. Into that house. Right.

[Ashley Kerr]

But that keeps their. Instead of like saying, we're going to take $5,000 off the purchase price, we'll keep the price at this and pay again.

[Tony J. Robinson]

Right. We'd rather give that to you because then the next person's gonna. They're just gonna p. You know, buy at the right price. So there is definitely some incentive there. But I think another strategy on the new construction side is building yourself. And actually, we actually interviewed Donovan Adacero. This was a while ago. It was episode 123. So, you know, several hundred episodes ago, but episode 123, and Donovan's whole strategy was finding these little infill lots with either homes on him that he was just going to tear down, or they were completely empty and he was building duplexes. And he got really good at just rebuilding these same duplexes. And I actually ended up interviewing him again on the real estate podcast. And I think by that time he had built like 20 of these duplexes, same exact floor plan, just plopping them down in different parts of. And like the, the cost to build, like you said, Dave, sometimes the cost to build is cheaper than just buying that same exact property on, on market. So just another strategy for Ricky's to consider as we look at 2025, I.

[Dave Meyer]

Think both of those stories are great examples of that sort of upside that I was talking about before. If you look at new construction on Zillow, you're not going to see the benefit that you got there, Tony. Like that's not showing up in their purchase price because as you said, they need to protect that purchase price. So they're basically sneaking you discounts. They're lowering their profit. They just don't want to do it by lowering their top line. It's the same thing when you see landlords offer a month free on rent, right? They want to keep their comps, they need to give a discount, but they're trying to keep their comps. And so that's why you just need to, in this sort of new age we're in, you need to do that next level of research. And that might mean calling around and poking and negotiating, but that's the business. And I personally, I find that to be kind of the fun part of the business. So I think it's, it's, it's a cool opportunity to, to search for those types of opportunities.

[Ashley Kerr]

So to kind of wrap us up here in the report, you also mentioned tariffs and the impact they could have on 2025 and any Fed changes that we could see coming. So do you want to kind of just summarize that for us?

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, it is a terrible year to make predictions. I hate this time of year for myself.

[Ashley Kerr]

At the end of the year, we're going to replay this to see if you're right or wrong.

[Dave Meyer]

I like doing it at the end of the year because the housing market is very seasonal and usually it's like a good time to do it. But right now, with a new administration coming in and an administration that made promises that are going to likely change the, like, economic policy and the economic landscape more than in previous years, and we just don't know what that's going to happen. Right. Like we're talking about terrorists, we're talking about tax breaks, we're talking about deportations, like all of these things could impact the housing market, but the devil's in the details with any, you know, government policy. And so it's really hard to know how some of Trump's proposed ideas are going to impact the housing market till we see literally what gets passed into law. So I think we all just need to be a little patient and understand what some of the upsides are going to be, what some of the risks might be. So I'm doing my best, presuming somewhat of a status quo in terms of tax policy and tariffs and stuff. But I do expect things to change and we're going to have to see what that means for investors over the, you know, probably in the first half of 2025.

[Ashley Kerr]

Well, Dave, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out more information about everything you have going on?

[Tony J. Robinson]

Sure.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. You can find me on two of the other BiggerPockets podcasts, the Bigger Pockets Real Estate show, and on the Market. Or you can find me on Instagram where I'm at the Data Deli and.

[Ashley Kerr]

Also very soon at the Momentum Virtual Summit. So it will be going from February 11th to April 1st, eight weeks. And every week we'll have a session, a 90 minute session with some of your favorite podcast hosts like Tony and Dave and you guys. It will be like a live Q and A at the end of each call. So bring all of your questions. But you can go to biggerpockets.com summit25 for more information to join us there. I'm Ashley and he's Tony. And we'll see you guys on the next episode of Real Estate Rookie.