October 12, 2007 · 8:06 am

Is That A Good Deal?

It just seems to me that people keep missing the point. The question isn’t “Is that a good deal?” The question is “Where else could I put my money and would that be more or less profitable?”

When it comes to real estate investing people are constantly asking me (after I’ve shown them a property) “Is this a good deal?”
“I don’t know.”
Now, I’m really not trying to be flippant. In fact, I’m trying to make you think. After all, what is a good deal for you may not be a good deal for the very next guy discussing the very same property. Why?
  • Different criteria.
  • Different job incomes.
  • Different credit scores.
  • Differing ability to take advantage of passive loss.
  • Different down payments.

Get the picture?

I am not advising here the infamous real estate investing technique of “paralysis by analysis.” I am saying that you need to know what’s on the market and how each of those properties would be expected to perform in order for you to answer the question “Is this a good deal?” about any one particular investment property.

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October 10, 2007 · 7:34 am

Note To All You Costa Rica Spammers

You are annoying the hell out of me with all your stupid “Great post! Have you thought about blah, blah, blah” followed by your stupid, un-asked for links.

You want a link from this blog? Let me tell you you are going about it all wrong. And in case you haven’t noticed I just keep throwing them in the trash.

Please discontinue your links. If you like, and it won’t bother me a bit, quit reading, as well.

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October 10, 2007 · 7:06 am

More Growth News For Olathe, Kansas

Looks like I’m doing a week long series on how real estate, and therefore real estate investing, is affected by the influx or outflow of jobs in a given region. Since I live in Olathe, I’ve been focusing on Olathe and southern Johnson County, Kansas. (Which includes Overland Park and Leawood and maybe some of Lenexa.)

***
From today’s Business section of the Kansas City Star comes an article by Kevin Collison that states U.S. Bank is building a 100,000 square-foot facility that will house technical equipment to support this bank’s nationwide operations. The western Olathe site was chosen from 93 possible sites and was chosen for reasons including “competitive utility costs and availability of labor.”
While the contractor building the site will be from Minneapolis they are expected to use as much as 70% local subs . This new business in Olathe should bring at least 80 long term jobs.
***
From today’s Olathe Neighborhood News section of the Kansas City Star there is an article written by Sarah Benson that talks about the continued growth of the Olathe School District.
Here are some choice sentences;
The district is growing at an unprecedented rate.

The district (Olathe) gained 842 students this year, bringing it’s enrollment to 26,385.
Quoting Superintendent Pat All: “We’ve had straight-line growth for 41 years.”
And my favorite paragraph of the article: Olathe’s growth isn’t just because of new subdivisions. All said that student population in older, established neighborhoods is up, too. That’s because of young families with small children are finding affordable housing in older neighborhoods.
As a real estate agent who lives in works in Olathe that last paragraph goes along with what I’m seeing. Do date the older neighborhoods aren’t decaying. In fact, many buyers are buying low and fixing up to build their equity and live closer to where they choose.
As Olathe steams towards the projected goal of 300,000 people by 2050 we are going to see a lot of changes. It will be important to keep our schools healthy as well as our job growth. Olathe, like Overland Park, can be a strong city in it’s own rights. Not just living off of the jobs provided by Kansas City.

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October 9, 2007 · 7:15 am

Forsee Out At Sprint: What This May Mean In Kansas City

Coming on the heels of yesterday’s post about the growth and expansion of Garmin is last night’s news that Gary Forsee has stepped down (fired?) as CEO of Sprint. It seems that Sprint has been hemorrhaging customers and has lost it’s way concerning customer service, vision and execution.

This is potentially very good or very bad news for Kansas City’s economy, specifically Johnson County and it’s housing market.

Should a new CEO come in and embrace Sprint’s Kansas City roots, turn the company around and cause economic growth/expansion those middle management houses will once again be in short supply and high demand. But if some east coast guy comes in who thinks of Kansas City as a liability more than an asset and decides to move more and more operations towards Reston, VA, well, there could be big, big trouble.

This is development worth watching. I have quite a few clients that are Sprint employees. Sprint is the single largest employer around Kansas City and pays very well compared to many other tech companies here, from what I’m told.

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October 8, 2007 · 8:11 am

Real Estate Values & Expansion

A basic tenet of real estate theory is that anywhere there is job growth real estate will be more in demand. As there is more demand, there is pressure for prices to rise. Less demand usually follows jobs fleeing an area. The people will follow leaving a downward pressure on housing.

How does this relate to real estate investing in Olathe, Kansas? Just thought you would like to know that Olathe’s Garmin, Inc, the world headquarters of the GPS leader, is expanding again just a few years after completing their new headquarters.

Also, Olathe still predicts a near doubling in population over the next twenty years. A commercial agent I know says light industry and warehouse space is going quickly.

Just thought I would share.

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October 7, 2007 · 8:58 am

Am I The Only One Who Didn’t Know?

Okay, so yesterday I wrote about how mad I was about the way tickets disappeared in 30 seconds or less. Check the time of my post and I think you will see that it was just minutes after 10:00 am. After having done so I made one last pathetic attempt to find tickets on Ticketmaster.

No such luck.

So imagine my surprise when I open the paper this morning and find that they sold out 9 shows. They must have made the announcements moments after I turned off the computer and went out to live the rest of my life. I didn’t know I had to hang around and monitor for more shows. I thought they would announce them later.

I’ve since tried again this morning hoping for a secretly announced 10th show. I must be destined to not see him this time around. Oh well, I’ll have fond memories of the show I saw in the Cap Center outside of Washington, DC. There all I had to do was make a phone call.

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October 6, 2007 · 9:05 am

Sprint Center + Ticketmaster = Corruption

Okay, so Garth Brooks tickets went on sale 6 minutes ago. By 10:00 they said no tickets available online. Now I have 3 computers all refreshing by the second and a phone dialer (who never got through) and we’ve been doing this since 9:58 am as I’m sure thousands of others were. But are you telling me that at 10:00 am when the tickets went on sale that they were already sold out?
How exactly is this thing working? How do you sell 18,000 seats in less than 30 seconds? Were 18,000 really available or was it like the Hannah Montana fiasco where they only made 4,000 available to the “regular” people?
I’m sure Brooks will add concerts. But will the public have a fair shot at them? Or will they go to people hand picked by the Sprint Center, Wal-Mart and Ticketmaster from out of town. My guess is the latter. It will bring in great tax revenue for the city. But the people who voted to fund this thing really don’t have much of a chance. Granted, I live in Olathe so I didn’t vote or pay a tax (yet, they’ll get me at the Power & Light District) but it’s still frustrating.

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