Of all the considerations an entrepreneur has to make when starting a business—what to name it, how to price the products and more—the legal considerations are perhaps the most important. From determining a business structure, to complying with local labor laws, to ensuring you prepare for and properly file your taxes, forgetting to account for any of these aspects could lead to disastrous legal consequences down the line—ones that may be impossible to recover from.

To ensure you don’t make any legal missteps as you begin your entrepreneurial journey, consider the advice of those who have experience dealing with the legalities of starting a business. Here, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council outline some of the most important legal considerations to make when starting a business and why handling these tasks should be at the top of your to-do list.

1. Accurate Tax Filing And Documentation

Ensure accurate tax filing and documentation from the very first year. Missteps in this area can lead to significant penalties, audits or even legal actions in the future. Also, early mistakes can snowball over time, making them more difficult and costly to correct later. Investing in a competent accountant or tax professional from the outset can be a wise decision to prevent such potential issues. – Yury Sokolov, Finazon

2. Registration For Data Protection And Privacy Compliance

For immigrant founders, it’s really important to have the right immigration status when starting your business and to own the company IP. Some founders register their company in the U.S. for sales primarily and then have their development offshore to protect IP rights to the software. If you are building a data-centric organization, take the legal considerations one step beyond to prioritize registering for data protection and privacy compliance. Validate your customer and product usage data rights and make sure your business is registered in a country or state where you can outline ownership of data as part of your terms of service. – Surbhi Rathore, Symbl.ai

3. Clear, Detailed Contracts And Agreements

When you start a business, it’s really important to create clear and detailed contracts and agreements. These are legal documents that explain the rights and responsibilities of everyone involved in the business. Having good contracts helps prevent disagreements and protects everyone’s interests. It also shows that your business is trustworthy and professional. Contracts make sure you follow the law as well as help you run your business smoothly. It’s a good idea to get help from a lawyer to help customize the contracts to fit your needs and review them regularly. By focusing on clear and comprehensive contracts, founders can keep their businesses safe and build good relationships with customers, partners and all others involved. – Kazi Mamun, CANSOFT

4. Your Business’s Legal Structure

The first legal consideration that founders need to consider when starting a business is the entity’s legal structure. Depending on your business type, desired operations and long-term vision, you’ll need to decide on whether you want to start an LLC, S corporation, C corporation or nonprofit organization. Not only does this decision impact things like taxation and investors, but it also affects your liability as an owner and founder. Always start by limiting your personal liability from the company’s liability. From there, you can worry about obtaining legal counsel, securing appropriate licenses and maintaining the right insurance. But protecting your personal liability must always be the first step. – Ian Blair, BuildFire

5. Proper Insurance Coverage

When embarking on an entrepreneurial journey, new founders must prioritize obtaining appropriate insurance coverage for their businesses. Starting a business involves risks, both known and unknown. Insurance acts as a safety net, protecting you from potential financial losses that may arise from unexpected events or liabilities. By securing the right insurance coverage, you mitigate risks and gain peace of mind. A few reasons why insurance should be high on the priority list includes liability protection, property protection, business interruption and professional liabilities. It demonstrates your commitment to responsible and prudent business practices, instilling confidence in stakeholders and potential partners. – Abhijeet Kaldate, Astra WordPress Theme

6. Employment And Labor Laws

Employment and labor laws are absolutely essential considerations for every founder to take care of. You need to protect the interests of all parties involved—your business, yourself, your employees and other stakeholders. You have to understand the classification of employees, overtime pay and more. You also have to follow fair practices, ensure there’s no discrimination and protect your and your employees’ intellectual properties and contributions. Make sure that you hire the right people to help you comply with labor requirements right from the start to avoid problems down the line. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

7. Intellectual Property Protection

One critical legal consideration that new founders need to prioritize is protecting their intellectual property (IP). This includes trademarks, copyrights and patents. Safeguarding IP assets is crucial for establishing a competitive advantage, preventing others from using or copying your unique ideas, products or brand identity, and maintaining the value of your business. It is advisable to consult with an intellectual property attorney to identify and protect your IP assets through proper registrations, contracts and confidentiality agreements. – Ismael Wrixen, FE International

8. IP Or Patent Violations

When starting a business, it’s important for founders to be wary of intellectual property and patent laws and to make sure they don’t violate any. Intellectual property laws may apply to even the most basic of things that aspiring entrepreneurs are either unaware of or fail to consider, such as the name of the business, the company’s logo, item design, content and so on. Violating these laws would not only lead to the demise of a business before it has even started, but it could also cause the founders to face severe penalties that would haunt them for quite a long time. Research is the key to avoiding such legal complications and helps new founders kick-start their businesses successfully. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

9. Proper Industry Licensing

One of the most important things to do is get proper licenses for the industry you’re in. This is especially critical because having the right licenses ensures that your business operates legally and doesn’t risk being shut down by authorities. Plus, the added benefit is that you appear legitimate and more trustworthy to your audience and customers. You can show that you comply with industry regulations and build a positive reputation, attracting more customers—something that is essential for success. – Blair Williams, MemberPress

10. Former Non-Compete Agreements

Consider if you still fall under any previous non-competes. Many entrepreneurs are inspired to start their businesses based on their past experiences; however, issues can arise if you are in breach of any non-compete agreements you signed in the past. Think hard about whether or not your new business directly competes with a previous employer. Review the contracts you’ve executed to determine the exact prohibitions and their expiration dates. When in doubt, seek legal advice or start a different business instead. You don’t want to burden yourself or your business early on with such an avoidable issue. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep Mattress

There’s no doubt that occupancy rates are declining for Airbnb properties amid a supply increase, but whether we’re entering an Airbnb apocalypse or just seeing a heated market moderate depends on who you ask. Nick Gerli, CEO of Reventure Consulting, began a viral debate over the future of Airbnb revenue when he tweeted a chart based on data from short-term rental analytics firm Alltherooms, which depicted average revenue per listing falling up to 47.6% in some cities. 

The Airbnb collapse is real.

Revenues are down nearly 50% in cities like Phoenix and Austin.

Watch out for a wave of forced selling from Airbnb owners later this year in the areas hit hardest by the revenue collapse. pic.twitter.com/xjGkj7bFC5

— Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) June 27, 2023

Gerli suggested the trend would impact the housing market, inducing a “wave of forced selling from Airbnb owners” in the affected cities. But data from AirDNA, a competing short-term rental analytics firm, tells a different story.

For example, the company reported that the year-over-year change in three-month-average revenue for Sevierville, Tennessee, was -9.4%, compared to the -47.6% supported by data from Alltherooms. AirDNA data revealed the largest revenue decline of the cities in Gerli’s chart was in New Orleans, with a -14.9% drop, which was still a far cry from the -37.1% decrease in revenue shown from Alltherooms data. 

What’s the True Airbnb Story?

It’s difficult to say with accuracy. Tax revenue reports from local governments are not readily available for 2023, and Airbnb Q1 2023 financial results aren’t broken down by city, leaving data from the two analytics firms as the best available estimate of what’s happening in these cities—and data from the two sources differ drastically. 

To provide some context, we asked rental property management company Evolve to look at their internal data. “While it’s difficult to get a true apples-to-apples comparison of the data between all three sources with varying inputs and slightly different calculations, Evolve’s analysis most closely aligns with AirDNA,” says Eric Schueller, executive vice president of revenue at Evolve. “We see these changes in revenue as a normalization of the market coming off of the peaks in 2021 and 2022. This is not a market crash—2023 will still bring the most nights ever booked, and investing in a short-term [rental] still remains a sound long-term option for owners.”

Cities like Denver saw tax revenue from short-term rentals peak in 2022 as tourism recovered, but there was also a 21% year-over-year increase in short-term rental licenses in the city as of February 2023. Data from Airbnb and Evolve paint a similar picture—demand for rental properties is booming, and Airbnb had its most profitable first quarter on record, but the supply of available rentals also increased 18% when compared to the first quarter of 2022. New investors flocked to the short-term rental strategy during peak demand, and increased competition is putting pressure on average daily rates. 

“Nationwide, both short-term rental market supply and demand are growing, with demand still hitting all-time highs,” says Schueller. “However, market supply growth is happening at a faster clip than market demand growth, causing total revenue per property to be down year over year.” 

But while the short-term rental strategy may not be reaping the same peak profits for Airbnb hosts in 2023 as in previous years, that doesn’t mean vacation properties aren’t profitable. AirDNA data still shows occupancy rates well above 2019 and 2020 levels. 

But success for short-term rental property owners is both market-dependent and property-dependent. In some cities, there’s too much competition to expect just any short-term rental property to flourish, but a showstopping property may still achieve high occupancy rates and revenues. In other cities, there may be enough demand to support new rentals. “We’ve seen revenue increase year over year for markets such as Mammoth Lakes, California, and Baltimore,” says Schueller. 

AirDNA listed Fairbanks, Alaska, as the top city for Airbnb investors in 2023, where occupancy rates reach 65%, and properties earn an average of $49,000 annually in revenue. The city scored highly for rental demand, a metric based on combined occupancy and booked listing growth rates. Other cities on the list include Evansville, Indiana, and Rockford, Illinois. 

A wave of new short-term rental ordinances in popular vacation destinations has also wiped out the potential for short-term rental investments in some of those areas, although most cities have not limited rentals for more than 30 days, meaning that the medium-term rental strategy is still viable. It’s also growing in popularity—there’s been more than a 30% increase in extended stays on Airbnb since 2019. Traveling professionals and digital nomads are using the platform to book rentals for a month or longer. 

How Will Declining Revenues Impact Investors?

While data from various sources differ, the sentiment from experts at AirDNA, Airbnb, and Evolve is consistent: The market is normalizing rather than crashing. Hosts still stand to make more money now than they did in 2019, before the boom in demand for vacation rentals. 

It’s possible the growth in supply will slow down as hosts on social media outlets issue warnings of #Airbnbust, potentially deterring newbie investors from jumping into the market. In some of the most impacted cities, investors who bought properties when mortgage rates were elevated may opt to sell due to falling occupancy rates and low-profit margins, which would affect the supply of vacation homes. If supply growth slows, it’s possible that falling revenues could plateau above 2019 levels rather than decline indefinitely. 

Airbnb predicts a slowdown in bookings growth and a decrease in average daily rates in the second quarter when compared to last year during the post-pandemic vacation rental frenzy. AirDNA still forecasts demand growth and an increase in average daily rates for the remainder of 2023, but revenue per available rental is expected to decline. 

If you’re looking to break into the short-term rental market, you should be very conscious of the available data for your market and always have a backup plan. There are several paid analytics platforms that can help you estimate the revenue potential for the markets you’re interested in, and Evolve can also provide guidance for would-be rental property investors. 

With more competition, you’ll want to choose the optimal property as well as the right market, so gather local insights on the preferred amenities and number of bedrooms. Research other properties in the area, and make sure yours stands out from the pack. And in case you need to switch gears to remain profitable, calculate the expected revenue for the property in a medium-term or long-term rental scenario. 

Schueller also has some advice for existing vacation rental property owners who are feeling the pain of decreased revenues, including: 

• Set competitive rates: “Leveraging competitive rates adapted to today’s market is one of the best ways for owners to lock in harder-to-win bookings,” says Schueller. “Depending on a region’s activity, this could mean rates should be set differently from last month, last year, or even years past.” Note that listings with the lowest prices have the highest occupancy rates, according to Airbnb. 
• Capture last-minute bookings: Schueller notes that more travelers were booking rentals last-minute over the spring break holiday. “Owners should also use booking trends to inform when to lower rates to capture interest from last-minute bookers and avoid having an empty property,” he says. 
• Set a flexible cancellation policy: A Vrbo study revealed 77% of travelers would be more likely to book a vacation home with a flexible cancellation policy. Travelers can filter out properties without free cancellation, so choosing a flexible cancellation policy may get more eyes on your property. Vrbo data also shows more frequent bookings for properties with flexible cancellation policies. 
• Collect great reviews: Airbnb data shows travelers are more likely to book a listing with a high star rating, so ensure you’re providing a great experience across categories: Provide an easy check-in process, maintain the property’s cleanliness, ensure your listing is accurate, and communicate promptly with guests. 
• Consider getting help from a property manager: Managing a rental property in a competitive market can be overwhelming and may require more effort than you’re willing to put in. Says Schueller: “Ultimately, we find that vacation rental owners that manage their own properties are most successful when they treat their business like their full-time job, so for owners who are unable to dedicate that amount of time and energy, partnering with a property manager who already knows what success looks like is often the better option.”

The Bottom Line

The high revenue that short-term rental property investors captured in 2021 and 2022 may have been unsustainable—while plenty of people still want to travel, the new supply of properties brought by eager investors is driving down the average revenue for each host. It may be too early to tell whether a crash is underway, but most data sources seem to support a revision from the peak rather than a collapse. There’s still an opportunity for investors to profit from short-term rentals, according to Schueller, but it’s necessary to exercise caution, especially in oversaturated markets. 

Get the Best Funding

Quickly find and compare investor-friendly lenders who specialize in your unique investing strategy. It’s fast, free, and easier than ever!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

In the latest sign of the explosive growth of one-person businesses, Collective, an AI-powered back-office platform for solopreneurs, just raised $50 million in funding.

The San Francisco startup provides business formation services, S-election, payroll, tax, and bookkeeping services for one-person businesses and a personal dashboard to manage their finances.

Since it was founded in 2020, the company says it has built a waitlist of nearly 100,000 businesses.

“We need to continue to build the platform and scale our operations to handle the demand,” says CEO and co-founder Hooman Radfar. “The space is growing quite dramatically.”

Investors in Collective include Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund, Innovius Capital, The General Partnership, General Catalyst, QED, Expa, and Better Tomorrow Ventures, as well as Ashton Kutcher.

The company has raised $82 million in total and says it has increased revenue by 10x since its Series A round in 2021.

CEO and co-founder Hooman Radfar says Collective will use the investment to accelerate the use of AI in its operations.

Collective is using technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs) to build AI “copilots” to support its team of tax experts, accountants, bookkeepers, and relationship managers. The professionals can use these copilots to whittle down the time they spend on tasks such as bank reconciliation and expense categorization, allowing them to devote time to other business activities. The tool for expense reconciliation reduces the time required by 90%, Radfar says. For reconciliation, the time spent dips by 70%.

Collective plans to create additional AI tools as it scales up, according to Radfar. “It’s unbelievable how good some of this stuff is,” says Radfar. “It’s going to change the game for us and our members.”

The U.S. Census Bureau has found the number of new business applications has remained high since the pandemic, with 436,048 applications submitted in May 2023 alone in the U.S.

For Collective, investing its funding in AI and other new technologies will provide a glimpse of the future of the one-person business—a future driven by rapidly accelerating individual productivity, according to Radfar.

“This not only helps us make our platform better to serve our members but also gives us a lens to see the future for how our members themselves can create value for their customers,” he says.

Radfar believes that, owing to new technologies like AI, the day will arrive when a one-person or very small business will reach a $1 billion valuation.

“It may seem like science fiction but a smart business owner could rely on a workforce primarily made up of different AI-driven applications and maybe some contractors—and create tremendous value,” says Radfar. James Taylor, a global speaker on creativity, has described the trend toward this type of human + machine collaboration as “super creativity,” and has predicted it will transform the world of work in the future.

Ultimately, Collective aims to expand its services through partnerships to help the self-employed by providing access to benefits such as healthcare and financial services that are hard for the self-employed to access affordably.

The thinking, says Radfar, is “We have thousands of members, so how can we turn that ‘collective,’ if you will, into a tool for the individual who’s in our membership?”

David:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show, 790.

Victor:
So we drafted that offer, we offered 0% interest on a seven-year term. So basically like a car loan, right? And they went for it. So we’re at $6,500 a month with the balloon of the balance due in seven years, so they’ll end up owing about $40,000 at the end of that term, but it’s a phenomenal, phenomenal deal. And that thing is pulling in gross income of about $8,000 a month. So they’re going to let the tenants pay it off, and from there, they’ll have a free and clear asset in a great market that’s going to be a good value play for them to help fund their retirement.

David:
What’s going on everyone? It’s David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast here today with my co-host, Rob Abasolo, looking stunning and fabulous as ever. Rob, have you been working out? You look incredible.

Rob:
Oh, stop. You know I have. You know I have, and thank you for noticing. I appreciate that.

David:
My pleasure. And speaking of noticing, we noticed three real estate agents in the country that are crushing it for their clients, and we brought them back on the show today to talk about what they’re doing to find deals in today’s market where it can be very tough, but apparently it’s still possible. What do you think people should listen for in today’s episode to help them with their own journey?

Rob:
I think they should be listening for the creative solutions that exist in every single deal. And what I really, really, really love was the final one that we ended on. I knew you could tell, my wheels were turning there. I was like, “All right, which one of my properties can I convert into this amazing real estate model?” And yeah, I think a lot of people will get value out of just going out sometimes, trusting your knowledge, taking a bet, and maybe pursuing a model within real estate that they aren’t super familiar with.

David:
Yeah, I agree. A lot of the times when people share a deal, they just give you this overhead view, “Oh yeah, we bought it. We paid this price. This is the plan.” You don’t get a story that you feel like you could go replicate. Today’s guests actually give specifics on exactly how they negotiated it, how they found it, and what the plan was for the property. So you leave knowing, “Oh, I could go do that.” So you guys are going to really like today’s show, and make sure you listen all the way to the very end, because we talk about why some people are passing up on deals. We talked about a six-figure flip that Kim’s entire database skipped on, and then this investor bought it and made over a $100,000 on one property, and what they missed, so you don’t make the same mistake.
Before we get to today’s show, today’s quick tip. BiggerPockets has a feature called the AgentFinder that you can use to find an investor-friendly agent, like myself, in your area, because I can’t be cloned and there’s only one of me, but there are many agents out there that can help you with your deal. Check out biggerpockets.com/agentfinder to find an agent in the market that you want to invest in. Also, two of today’s guest, Kim and Victor joined us for an insider tips on their markets in episode 766. So go check out that episode if you like what you hear today. Rob, you ready to do this?

Rob:
Let’s jump into it.

David:
All right, welcome all back to the BiggerPockets podcast. The last episode went so well that we decided to do another episode where we are analyzing deals in specific markets that the BiggerPockets audience has been looking to buy. So in today’s show, we’re going to be diving into different opportunities in different markets. Matt, I believe this is your first time joining us, so welcome. Nice to see you here. Let’s start with you. My understanding is you’ve got 12 rentals yourself. You’re a property management company and brokerage, and you’ve been investing in Atlanta since 2010. First question for you, when you introduce yourself, do you find yourself saying, “Welcome to Atlanta,” like Ludacris to every single person that you meet?

Matt:
No. No, I don’t. But I do appreciate being here, David, and happy to be on the show.

David:
Yeah, there’s certain cities that have a song associated with them in my head. Like Rob’s from LA, right? So every time I think of Rob and LA, I think of Kendrick Lamar, The Recipe, it just starts playing in my head. And Atlanta definitely has Welcome to Atlanta, so now everybody else who’s my age is going to start hearing that in their head. You’re welcome for the earworm that you’re going to need to have surgically removed going forward. And we have Kim Meredith-Hampton from Tampa Bay, Florida, another exploding area. Kim Meredith-Hampton is in a co-working space. She’s got two commercial properties, 10 units, and 50 units of short-term rentals. She’s in property management, both long-term rentals and short-terms. Kim, welcome to the show. Did I missed anything?

Kim:
Nope, that’s it.

David:
All right. And then we have Victor Steffen, who is an investor, has been in Dallas-Fort Worth for seven years, has 48 doors across three states: Pennsylvania, New York, and Texas. He does rent by the room, long-term rentals, and others. Victor, welcome to the show that I missed anything there?

Victor:
You got it, thanks for having us again.

David:
Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a Dallas-Fort Worth song that comes to mind. We’re going to have to work on that. Is there a theme song for that area that I don’t know about?

Victor:
Yeah, just George Strait. Put that in a big old bucket and that’ll cover it.

David:
I literally was thinking George Strait, but I couldn’t think of a song he sings. Is he from there or is it just… That’s what people listen to?

Victor:
Well, he’s from Texas. He’s a Texan. He’s a good old Texan boy.

David:
It’s crazy that you read my mind. I was thinking George Strait, but I couldn’t think of a specific song.

Rob:
There’s a song called Dallas Days-

David:
Amarillo by Morning.

Rob:
Dallas Days and Fort Worth Nights by our good friend, Chris LeDoux?

Victor:
Chris LeDoux.

Rob:
Chris LeDoux, there we go.

Victor:
Perfect.

David:
Rob just had to Google that. He knows no music outside of John Mayer at all, he has to pretend.

Rob:
Well, I was going to say, when you said that you think of that song for me with LA, I was hoping you would say California Gurls by Katy Perry, because that’s our song, but that’s okay.

David:
That makes me think of you.

Rob:
Yeah. Yeah… That’s good.

David:
Yeah, if this podcast ever doesn’t work out, that’s what Rob and I’s next podcast is going to be named. California Gurls with Rob and Dave. That’s good. All right, well, welcome everybody to the show. We are going to talk some real estate, but before we get into these deals, let’s get to know a little about the Atlanta market. Matt, we’re going to start with you. What are the long-term benefits to your market?

Matt:
Yeah, Atlanta’s a great market overall. Very diverse economy, a lot of different employers here, a lot of employers coming to Atlanta. As you know, the general population, or a lot of people are moving to the Southeast in general, Atlanta’s just a big hub for that. So we’re seeing a ton of population increase, a lot so in suburbs as well. So not just the city of Atlanta, but you’re basically seeing outward growth in every direction. So all of the suburbs are growing, even the ones that are a little bit further out, where they’ve been typically a little bit more rural and raw land, you’re seeing a lot of new development there. There’s a lot of new construction about an hour outside of Atlanta, just because everyone’s growing outward for affordability reasons.

Rob:
Matt, what is the big economic engine for your area specifically? I know that Atlanta’s a big hub for many things, one of them being the movie scene, but are there a lot of reasons why that economy is booming at the moment?

Matt:
So the movie scene definitely has been huge. A lot of new films here, thanks to the Georgia tax credits. Films, TV shows, everything’s getting filmed here, just because it’s very business-friendly for them to do that, but it’s also business-friendly in general. So a lot of businesses that are already established, they’re Fortune 500 companies, they’re moving their headquarters here or expanding here, and basically coming here because Georgia is a business-friendly state. And it’s not one specific industry, so it’s not segmented to one thing. We’re seeing tech expansion, movie expansion, and everything in between.

David:
That’s right. And I will say, even though no one asked me, I could co-sign all three of these markets. I am bullish on all of them, I think that they’re good places for investors to buy. We have a lot of the one brokerage clients that are getting pre-approved and looking for investment properties in Georgia, not necessarily Atlanta, but the surrounding market around there. I think that is a good long-term market, and I have bought myself in some of the vacation area rental properties, where people in Atlanta would go if they wanted to stay at a cabin, so the mountains up that way. So I like that market myself, and Rob, you brought up a great point. Hollywood is literally moving into Atlanta. If anyone visits there, just talk to your Uber drivers. They will tell you who’s coming into town, what’s going on, and they’re constantly shuttling around movie stars. Matt, did you grow up in that area?

Matt:
So I’ve been here for about 16 years, but I’m originally from California, so happy to call Georgia home and love living here.

David:
You’re originally from California?

Matt:
Yep.

David:
When did you pick up that accent?

Matt:
It does grow on you pretty quick.

David:
It sure does.

Matt:
I think I started saying y’all about after a year, so it was pretty quick.

David:
It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I could be on the phone with a contractor from Jacksonville or Southern Florida, and after two weeks of talking to them, a drawl will start to crawl into my mouth. It’s contagious.

Matt:
It is contagious.

David:
Okay, it’s not just me. You’re making me feel a little bit better.

Matt:
It is a whole lot easier to say y’all, though.

Rob:
Hey, listen, Matt, it’s nice to have a fellow California girl on the pod. Welcome.

David:
All right. And do you have any data on the current shifts in your market?

Matt:
Yep. So right now we’re at 2.1 months of inventory, which is still a seller’s market. Just for a reminder for newer folks, six months is typically a balanced market, so we’re still on a seller’s market currently. We are seeing an increase in inventory, but it’s not dramatic, we’re seeing about 25% more inventory than we saw last year. But the weird phenomenon that we’re seeing here in this market, we’re also seeing in a few other markets, is the number of new listings over here is actually down. So while we have more inventory overall, the number of new listings that are coming to market is actually less than it was last year. So basically what’s happening is listings that come to market and they’re priced correctly, those are moving very quickly. But listings that are coming to market and they’re priced too high, or maybe they need too many repairs, those are sitting a little bit longer, and those can be an excellent opportunity to submit an offer.

David:
I like it. Rob, we need to go buy in Atlanta, this is prime hunting ground for me. So if I hear you right, Matt, what you’re saying is that less listings are coming on the market, but there has been a 25% increase in listings overall, because the stuff that comes on that’s priced appropriately and in good conditions sells quickly, and there’s not a lot of it. But you got a lot of stale product, you got a lot of donuts that have been sitting around for a couple weeks, and no one’s buying them.

Matt:
Exactly. And then they’re tarnished and then nobody wants them because everyone’s used to listings moving very quick. Right now, our average days in market is 12, so if someone sees something on the market for 30, 40 days, they’re like, “Oh, well, there’s something wrong with that.” So the average retail buyer is passing up on that, but it can be a great opportunity for an investor.

David:
I love that stuff. I mean, that’s what creates opportunity, right? As a real estate agent, you’re like, “Okay, you got a bifurcation here.” You have the hot stuff that hits the market that everyone sees on Zillow, and you got eight buyers for every property. But the opportunities in the stuff that’s been sitting there for a long time, I always look for high days on market and most of my books, I write about this as the strategy that you need to be looking at in tough markets. Rob snagged our deal by doing just that. We found a property that had been sitting on the market for a really long time, but it was gorgeous. However, it had an issue where it was very tough to buy because it was five acres of land and lenders didn’t want to lend on it, so it just got passed up, and then no one’s looking at it. And the owners of the home are like, “How come no one wants my house? No one wants to take me to prom.”
And you can show up with a math geek offer to take out that homecoming queen listing that normally would be waiting for a high school quarterback offer that we don’t want to make. I don’t know how well that analogy works, but I like what you’re saying, Matt, and I like your realtor approach here. Because if you’re a buyer looking to buy in that area, that’s the playground you want to be playing in, is these listings that have gone stale that you can write aggressive offers on, right?

Matt:
Exactly.

David:
What’s your advice for people who are chasing these properties that have been on the market for 40, 50, 60, maybe 90 days? Is there an approach that you recommend buyers take when writing offers on these?

Matt:
That’s an excellent question. So what I would tell everyone is you really need to get familiar with the market. So I could present a deal to you and tell you it’s great, but you really don’t know if it’s a great deal deal unless you know the market. So if you are considering Atlanta or any market, I would spend some time and underwrite a couple deals, look at a few deals, and get really familiar with the market as a whole. And then that way, when you do approach one of these listings that’s been sitting for a while and you know it’s overpriced, or maybe it was overpriced originally and they’ve cut the price because it’s been on the market for a while, but they may still be too high, you know, “Hey, I should go on at this number.” Or you have a general idea of what it should trade for and where you need to be with that offer.

Rob:
So tell us about the strategy that people are finding most successful in this market. Because it sounds like there are a lot of properties out there that are in need of work. Is it a market where you’re going out and doing full on rehabs? Or is it a market that you’re going in and cleaning up the listing a little bit, and doing more of a quick cosmetic flip? A wholetail, if you will?

Matt:
Yeah. Yeah, great question. So right now, we’re not seeing a lot of just simple turnkey, buy and hold, working. A lot of it is basically breakeven or negative cash flow, unfortunately, because rates are higher and prices are still elevated. So the strategy that we are seeing working currently in our market is value add. So it could be, just like you mentioned Rob, something where they go in there and do just cosmetic updates. It could be adding a bathroom, it could be adding a unit, it could be a whole BRRRR strategy if it’s severely distressed. It really just depends on what the property needs. But typically, the deals that are working right now are value add deals.

David:
Can you define what you mean by value add deal?

Matt:
Yeah, so like I said, it could be a three bedroom, one bath property, and the market is used to three bedroom, two baths in that area. So a lot of people we’re working with, they’ll buy that property, add a second bathroom, and that brings it back up to market. So you’ve added value by adding another bathroom. Another deal that we can talk about here in a minute that we did is somebody actually added additional units to a property. So people, they’re able to add additional space, whether it’s square footage, bedrooms, that’s going to add value to the property. So anything like that which will add value, or it could just be a very distressed deal, where the average retail buyer says, “Hey, this property needs way too much work. I’ll come in on a 3% down. I don’t have the money to invest in this property to fix it up. I’m not even going to consider it.”
Whereas an investor who has some capital behind them could purchase that property, fix it up, bring it back to retail standards, and then flip it or hold onto it, put a tenant in there and then recognize the value.

David:
So as you as an agent looking to represent buyers, are you filtering these and then bringing it to your buyers and saying, “Hey, here’s a value add thing,” or are you telling them what to look for, they go look for it, then they bring the deal to you to negotiate?

Matt:
So it’s a little bit of both. So we always try to help buyers clearly define their buy box. So every buyer’s going to be a little bit different in what they’re looking for, we can educate buyers and tell them what’s working, what we’re seeing in the market, and help them define their buy box. And once that’s defined, we can bring listings to them and say, “Hey, this fits your buy box. What questions do you have for us? Or is this something that’s of interest to you?”

Rob:
That’s a really great overview of the Atlanta market. Thank you so much, Matt. Kim, I know you’ve told us about your market previously in the Tampa world. Can you just give us a couple bullet points about what’s happening in Tampa right now, and just an overview of the market?

Kim:
Ours is very similar to Matt’s, almost identical. Anything really under 350,400 is selling like hotcakes, it’s not sitting there at all, those are where your numbers make sense for rentals. Also, anything over that 800 are sitting now, and then also the small multi that need a ton of work, and they have overpriced the property, and those are definitely sitting. And you can make an offer, we do that often, which is a lot lower, but some people still haven’t come into reality yet, that we aren’t at our 20%. And then also our current days on market are about 14, so we still are sitting pretty low on that. Inventory is low, it is slowly creeping up. Our median price points have also went up 5,000 since we last spoke, so we’re now at 410. So it’s really crazy, it’s just doesn’t seem like it’s going back the other way, but we shall see.

Rob:
All right, thanks for taking us through that. Victor, what about you, man? Can you tell us really the… What’s the big selling point for the Dallas-Fort Worth area right now?

Victor:
Population growth, median wage growth, job growth. That’s it.

Rob:
Boom. Easy, I love it. All right. Well, do you have it a deal to walk us through in that market? Because as we understand it, everyone’s going to be walking us through a deal in their respective market. Could you kick us off?

Victor:
Yeah, you got it. So it’s one that I really just had fun doing. Irving, Texas is just the northwest side of Dallas, and it’s one of our favorite markets for a variety of asset types, and also management strategies. Specifically, we like looking for multi-family here, and we like to find stuff that you can do a short or mid-term rental strategy on. Irving is very short-term rental friendly, you don’t have a ton of regulation and hoops that you have to jump through, that you’ve got major medical in close proximity. You’ve got the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport right there, you’ve also got Downtown Dallas, all within close proximity basically surrounding Irving, Texas. So what we found for our client over here was basically a turnkey quadplex that was already ran as a mid-term rental opportunity. It was on the MLS, so it wasn’t like we had to do a lot of off-market banging on doors in order to find it.
And the seller, in the listing description, had that they were looking to retire and spend more time with their grandkids. And when I see that, immediate buzzword is seller-financed, is that going to be an opportunity? So we typically do one, two seller-financed deals per year, this one fit that buy box. We had a perfect buyer for it who had the cash. We submit an offer, and whenever we go ahead and ask our clients like, “All right, if they’re having a trouble figuring out what kind of offer to go ahead and send forward.” We say, “Well, what’s going to make you excited? What’s going to make you say, “This is something that I can really get behind,” and be excited about closing on?” So we drafted that offer, we offered 0% interest on a seven-year term. So basically like a car loan, and they went for it. So we’re at $6,500 a month with the balloon of the balance due in seven years, so they’ll end up owing about $40,000 at the end of that term.
But it’s a phenomenal, phenomenal deal, and that thing is pulling in gross income of about $8,000 a month. So they’re going to let the tenants pay it off, and from there, they’ll have a free and clear asset in a great market that’s going to be a good value play for them to help fund their retirement.

Rob:
Awesome. So tell us really quickly, what was the actual listing price and purchase price of this property?

Victor:
They asked 750, we gave them 750 because they gave us our terms.

Rob:
Wow. Yeah, okay. Great, great, great. So yeah, I guess, if they’re giving you your terms, then yeah, the listing price really isn’t quite scary. And so the investor strategy walking into this was you already knew that it was functioning as a mid-term rental, or was that just your plan to convert it into a mid-term rental?

Victor:
It was already fully functioning, mid and short-term rental property, fully furnished, all furnishings conveyed. So a real rockstar deal. Also, a piece of this that’s important is I know that that client’s goal… Because whenever we do our introductory calls with our clients, it’s going to be, “What’s the perfect deal for you? What’s the long-term strategy?” And for them, their long-term strategy was, “Hey, I want to find a mid and short-term rental portfolio, get up to 25 doors, that’s going to allow me to quit my high paying W2 anesthesiologist,” and this one fit that mold perfectly. They’re going to have almost zero cash flow on it for the next seven years, but at the end of that seven-year term, it’s owned free and clear, and cash flowing aggressively.

Rob:
Yeah, so is it actually amortized over the seven years?

Victor:
Yep, exactly right.

Rob:
Oh, okay, okay. So what is that monthly payment looking like? Because you also mentioned that it is bringing in $8,000 in gross rents. Did you say what the actual monthly note was?

Victor:
6,500.

Rob:
6,500. Okay, all right. So you actually pull some cashflow from that, that’s amazing.

Victor:
Well, a little bit. It covers its debt.

Rob:
Okay, okay.

Victor:
If you wanted to go ahead and reamortize that thing, and stretch it out over 30 years, of course you could cashflow at that point in time, but they’re not interested in cashflow right now. They’re interested in owning this free and clear, and having a property that really just generates consistent monthly income in seven years from now, not today.

Rob:
Sure, sure. And I’m sure the tax benefits really make this one quite the home run.

Victor:
Exactly. Especially for that seller and what she’s looking to do. She has a couple grandbabies, go do your thing, and don’t clean these things anymore like you were doing. So it’ll be a great deal for her, she gets a consistent 6,500 a month, doesn’t have to clean a bunch of short-term rental units.

Rob:
Amazing. Awesome. Okay, well that’s a very strong one to start with. So Matt, I hope you’ve got one that can top that. If not, you’ll be booted off the pod. No, I’m just kidding. All right, Matt. So Matt, take us through your deal next. Name of the deal, tell us the market that it’s in, I think we can probably guess that it’s probably in Atlanta, and then tell us the listing price and the purchase price.

Matt:
Yep. Yeah, so the name of this deal is Cross Brook. The listing price was 750,000 on it, we were able to negotiate a deal at 735. This is not a finance deal as well, which is rare for us. We do one or two seller-financed deals a year, similar to Victor. But when we could do them, they’re fantastic, but definitely not typical for our market, it just depends on the deal. We were able to do that on this deal because this is a very unique deal, where it was a single-family house and a duplex on two separate lots, but they were neighboring each other. And same seller, the seller’s husband, before he’d passed away, actually had built both properties. So she had been occupying the single-family house and she kept the duplex as a rental property. They were severely under rented though, as far as the tenants that were in the duplex, so we were able to get in there. The investor I worked with was able to purchase property for 735, which was the total for all three units.
He was then able to get the rents up in the two units of the duplex, up to market rent. He also took the single-family house and made that a two unit, by converting the basement to a in-law suite, which he rents out separately. And then the duplex actually had a garage, so that it was a raised duplex, and he was able to convert that to a third unit. So now he has five units out of this property that originally had three, so it was a huge value I played for him, he got very favorable terms. The single-family house, since there are two separate parcels, he was able to use a DSCR loan to acquire that one. And then the duplex, we were able to negotiate seller-financed on the reason that he couldn’t get the DSCR loan with it, or I guess he could, but it wouldn’t have been favorable for him, is because they were so severely under rented that the debt service coverage ratio wouldn’t have made sense.
So it made more sense to attempt to negotiate a deal with the seller, and do seller-financed, so that he could get that loan closed, and she could move on, and we could get the deal started and going.

Rob:
Okay. Okay. Great, great, great. And so how did you say you found both of these deals?

Matt:
So this was a non-market deal. So it had been sitting on market for a while at 775, they cut the price to 750, it still continued to sit there, which at that point we offered 735.

Rob:
Awesome. And so when you came in, tell us a little bit about the value that you demonstrated to your client. Aka, how did you help shine up this deal when you walked into it for your client?

Matt:
Yep, so I helped negotiate the seller-financed terms. The client that I was working with is a very experienced investor, but he had never done a seller-financed deal, so I helped structure that. I said, “Hey, let’s make the seller two seller-financed offers, that way she doesn’t… She still has the option to say no, but if we give her two options, her likelihood to say no is less, because she’s going to choose one of those two options.” So we gave her two options for the seller-financed. She chose one that was actually, in my opinion, very favorable for my client, the buyer. And so she ended up accepting that, we were able to move forward, and get the deal closed.

Rob:
Awesome, wow. Wow, that sounds like a really, really good one. David, do you… Any other questions about this deal before we move on to the next one?

David:
Only question is, I’m curious how you worked up the seller financing angle when it was a property that came from the MLS. A lot of the time sellers listing their home on the MLS are not familiar with this and agents are very uncomfortable with it. How did you work that in, and then how did it work? Did you also get a loan on the property and was seller financing second position, or did you just take over the note?

Matt:
Excellent question. So we actually started our 735 offer with a DSCR loan on both parcels, because it was two parcels right next to each other. So we started with DSCR loan, once the lender got ahold of it and they looked at the rents, which again were severely under market, they said, “Hey, in order to get this deal closed, you’re going to have to bring a lot more cash to the table.” And then at that point, the investor and I circled up. We said, “Hey, let’s see if we can offer seller financing and that way we can keep this deal alive.” You can still have cash [inaudible 00:24:56], but not as much cash. And we basically told the seller, “Hey, if you want to close on both properties,” because she didn’t want to sell one without the other, “Let’s do seller financing and get the deal closed.”

David:
So does that mean you took over the note of the seller when you say that?

Matt:
No, so she actually had paid off both properties. So they were both free and clear, so the deal that we worked out was a first position mortgage, five year interest only. And so he’s not paying any principal, he’s just paying interest only for five years. And then there’s a five-year balloon at the end of that term.

David:
Quick tip there. When a property is completely paid off, there are options to do this that do not exist when there’s financing on the property. I should have asked that first, I think I was assuming that there was a note. So did you sniff that out or did your client propose that idea?

Matt:
No, so I actually knew there was no debt because I try to do a little bit of title research when we get in these situations, just to see what options are. So I saw she had no debt. Like I said, her husband actually built both these properties, so he’d actually built the whole neighborhood where this property was at. So I think he was doing pretty well, he built both properties. Unfortunately, he had passed away and left the properties to his wife, and she was ready to go spend some time with the grandkids, so we were able to negotiate the seller financing deal.

David:
Nice. Yeah, I’m bringing that up, because people hear seller financing and they go, “Oh, I’ll just do that every time. I’ll just do seller financing. I don’t want to get a loan for 7.5%, I’ll just take over their loan.” But the stars have to align to have everything pretty perfect. But if you’re aware of it, when the stars align, you don’t just walk right under the stars without thinking about asking. It’s definitely better when you have that option, so good job there.

Matt:
Yeah, that’s why we only do one or two seller-financed deals a year, because the stars really do have to align.

David:
Exactly, that’s a great point. Kim, tell us about your deal.

Kim:
Mine’s at twofer, I’m going to call it a twofer. We actually sold this duplex, and it’s in St. Pete, small multi, basically a two and a three bedroom on each side. We had sold it a couple of years ago and the seller, I guess, put it up for sale themselves. Nothing happened. They reached out to us, and so we actually managed it as well. So we were their first point of contact, which is great, so it’s more off-market. So we got one of the tenants out, we got it fixed up, and we put it on the market for 360, and we had an offer same day. And they actually came back after inspection and said, “This is just too much work for me on the other side. I don’t want to do this, that.” So they canceled that contract. We had one of our… I call him our serial flipper, and we’ve done several deals with him. He came in and offered 300, no contingencies whatsoever. I’ll close in two weeks, let’s get it done, so that’s what the seller accepted.
I guess their daughter was going to college and they needed all the cash, Ivy League or whatever it was. So we sold it to him and during that time, he got the other resident out of the property, and that took them about 30 days because they were month to month, which a great property manager will do that when they put things up for sale, so you can do what you want with the property. And once he got that… Took him about three to four months to get the whole rehab done, and he spent about 125 on it. And after that, we put it up at 545, we had five offers in one day, and we got over ask at… I think it was 556. And I mean, the rest… So he did quite well on that. But yes, we sold it twice, but twofer.

Rob:
Wow. Okay, so you actually helped acquire the initial property. I guess it fell out of contract the first time, then you brought in who you said is a serial flipper, they come in, they put about 125,000 into it. They said, “Hey Kim, it was really great working with you. Can you list it for me?” You then list it, five offers in the first day, and then you end up going over, and selling it for 556. That’s a healthy profit, right?

Kim:
Correct. Healthy? Yeah. I call him a serial flipper because he has a certain price point. He will not do anything that doesn’t at least make him a $100,000, that’s his. He gets the worst house in the best neighborhoods, and this is a B neighborhood too, it’s a great area. And by the way, he made the three bedroom, a four bedroom, so it even made it more enticing because in St. Pete, you can do mid-term or long term, and it’s such a great area. So he had some good options in there, anyone did beyond that, and he knows that.

Rob:
Yeah, I’ve been looking for a six-figure flip, and I’ve been talking to wholesalers and trying to find them, but they are hard to find. At this point, we’re just taking really a lot of things that pencil out, but that’s good for him. So are you the one that’s typically bringing those to him or does he have his own systems for finding, I guess, his six-figure flips?

Kim:
Both. We always have a system in place where any of our owners that we manage for, we have just over a thousand units, and anyone that wants to sell, they get offered out for several days to our investor list. And if somebody doesn’t take it, then it goes on to MLS.

Rob:
Okay, great. And so the MLS is where this deal was sourced as well?

Kim:
It was. We actually put that out to all of our investors and nobody took it. So you’re like, “Wow.”

David:
I have a question there. Why do you think they passed on it, Kim?

Kim:
I just think, I don’t know if it was Victor who said it, but some people… Or maybe it’s Matt, some people don’t want to do all that work. Sometimes they don’t have that mentality to do that. And I mean, we have all the contractors to help them do that, that are all licensed and insured that we can refer to them, and we always help. And so I don’t know, I mean if they’re new people, they definitely don’t… They’re like, “Okay, yeah, I don’t want to get into that.” But that’s usually where you make your most money.

David:
I have referred to that as real estate goggles, I’m wondering if there’s some seen greenway I could move it into it. But when you talk to an experienced investor, like Rob with his short-term rental, he sees something differently than me because he’s looked at more short-term rentals. He looks at the property and he goes, “Okay, the furniture’s terrible. It should look this way. The pink color should look like this. The decor should look this way, and it needs a theme. I bet if you did this or that, let me go look up research to see.” He sees what a property should look like. We typically call it the highest and best use, people make fun of realtors for saying that phrase, but I’ll do that with maybe a floor plan or a way the property is being used. It shouldn’t be used for this purpose in this area, it should be that way. Having those goggles, or having an agent that has those goggles, that can see angles that everyone else is skipping, is crucial. I mean, literally people missed out on a six-figure flip because it wasn’t what they were looking for.
Maybe they were looking for a facelift. They wanted, “Oh, I go in and I put in a new kitchen, and I put a new flooring and paint, and I flip.” And that’s the only thing they see. They can’t recognize that that huge workshop sitting out the back of it, that’s 1,400 square feet, that’s not permitted, but has electrical and plumbing run into it, could easily be turned into an ADU or two ADUs, that not only increases the value of the property, but increases the cash flow of the property. And there’s so many things like that, that when people bring the right set of goggles, they’ll see. And that’s one of the reasons I’m a fan of using agents, to be frank with you. Everyone wants the sexy off-market deal that they can get way below market value, they’re only looking at what I call buying equity. But there’s lots of way that real estate makes money, not just buying equity. Having those goggles can see opportunities. Do you see that, Kim, in your market happening pretty frequently?

Kim:
I do. I mean, obviously, we try to share as much as we can when we send out properties or post them to say, “Hey, this could be this. This could be your cashflow, or this could be the rent on this, or we can make another unit.” Or like with Rob, you could do a short or a mid-term on it. I mean, you want to give them as many options as possible. And again, I think people that are newer in this, they’re a little afraid, and they’re afraid what they don’t know, and that’s that part. I mean, we can garner and help them along during that process, but I don’t know what the answer is to that, and why [inaudible 00:33:26].

David:
Yeah, and I think about how we got in this position in the first place. So this is my hypothesis, I’m curious what you guys think. Podcasts like this started right after 2010, when everyone had PTSD and trauma, and insert your popular relationship therapist line that they’re all talking about. It was a toxic market, sellers were gaslighting buyers, they were emotionally abusive prices. Everyone was hurt from that. And when we looked at why people lost money, it’s because there was so much speculative approaches. They just buy low, sell high. “I know nothing about real estate, but they’re all going up, so I’ll just buy low, they’ll sell for more. It’s that simple.” When you ask someone, “Well did it cash flow?” They didn’t know what that meant, they didn’t understand there was a formula for ROI. None of the fundamentals of real estate were being practiced. So then the education kicked in, and we started explaining to people, “This is how you rent a cash-on-cash return. This is how you manage a property.” And then software started being developed to make everything about real estate became easier.
But people started taking courses from teachers, or gurus, or online creators that would say, “Here is the way to do it.” So this is the way that you look at cash-on-cash return, and you want it to say 10% or more, and then you buy it. This is the way you flip a house. You go 70% of ARV, you do a facelift, you do the kitchen and the flooring, the paint, you throw some mulch in the front yard, maybe the master bathroom, and you throw that thing back on there.” And people learned it from this really square peg, only way to look at it, strategy. And now that the market’s really high and there’s not a lot of deals, you can’t look at it from a perspective of what is the way, you have to say, “Well, what way would work for this property? And am I willing to do that?” And I’m only stopping to make this point, because I think so many people are hearing these podcasts and they’re frustrated. “I can’t find a deal.”
Well, they’re just going on Zillow, and they’re going on Rentometer, and they’re saying, “Here’s the rent, here’s the price, here’s my calculator. It doesn’t work.” They’re moving on the next one, they’re trying to force that square peg into every hole they find to see if it’ll fit, and it doesn’t. You got to look at every single property, almost like your child. Like, “I can’t talk to this kid the same way I could talk to that kid, they think differently.” They have different purposes and make it work there. But when you get that down, you see deals that Matt’s found, that Kim’s found, that Victor’s found. They’re out there, the people that have the right goggles are seeing them.

Rob:
Yeah, I totally agree, man. I totally agree. There are a lot of deals out there right now. I just bought a deal in Austin, and we thought we were going to just do a quick cosmetic flip on it, so we bought it. And once we actually started running the numbers on it, there wasn’t really going to be much meat on the bone, not to the point… With the amount of money that it was going to take to get invested in into it, wasn’t really going to be worth it. And so we started doing exactly what you’re talking about, and looking at the property from every angle. We started thinking, “Okay, what if we add square footage? What if we had an ADU, and start looking at all of the different uses for the property? And when it’s all said and done, we’re just going to rehab it and turn it into a mid-term rental.” So it was in front of me the entire time, but I was trying to get too fancy with it walking into it, and I really just wanted to do that one thing.
But really, after going through it, I think a lot of people find themselves in a deal, and they’re very quick to say it’s a bad deal and they’re going to lose money on it, when there’s other much less sexy options, like just holding it and making a little bit of money. That to me is a lot less sexy than making $50,000 profit on it, but it’s ultimately fine because it’ll cashflow for me every month. I’ll get amazing tax benefits from it, and it’s in Austin, Texas, which is an appreciating market always. So five to 10 years from now, I’m going to be real happy that I snagged it for the price that I got it.

David:
All right, let’s get another end of deals in from everybody here. Rob, you want to start us off there?

Rob:
Yeah, let’s do it. Okay, so we did first Victor, then Matt, then Nick. So I say let’s go back to you, Victor. Walk us through another deal, if you have one, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Tell us the name of the deal, tell us the market if it’s different than the one that I just named, and then the listing price and purchase price, and we’ll start there.

Victor:
Yeah, cool. This one I’m actually pretty excited about, because it’s more indicative of something that you can do sustainably and repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over again, it’s not that one-off unicorn like we first visited. And similar to what Kim was saying and what David was saying just earlier, it’s one that a lot of people glossed over, because it doesn’t hit a 1% rule type of a deal. But this one is in Haslet, Texas, which is a suburb of Fort Worth. Great school systems over that direction, a lot of recently built inventory that doesn’t need a lot of elbow grease put into it. So they’re recently built, they lease out quickly, and they’re desirable neighborhoods, all B-grade style neighborhoods. This one was ultimately going to be a long-term rental, it was already leased out for fair market rate, so there wasn’t anything sexy that you had to do in terms of adding value by increasing rents. It was already leased out for $2,400 a month. Asking price on it was a little bit high, it was at 330, and it had been sitting for a couple of weeks now.
So about 21 to 22 days, I think, when we submitted our offer. And similar to Kim over there in Tampa, our average days on market is 14, so it looks like there’s a black eye, it looks like there’s something wrong with this. It’s a 2015 build, right? It’s four beds, 1,800-plus square feet, it checks every one of our boxes for a quote-unquote, beef-style deal, breakeven appreciation focused style deal. We offered 300, got it under contract for 310, already has a tenant in place, already has high-quality management in place, and they’re paying $2,400 a month. So that type of deal is my absolute favorite to get into, because you’ve got something that covers your debt service, it’s in a great area, good school system, it’s going to appreciate nicely, and it’s going to throw off a little bit of cashflow each month on top of your PITI payment. So that one, to me, is the crème de la crème.

Rob:
Oh, very nice. Okay, so tell us this, you said that it already has a tenant in place. What is your stance on inheriting a tenant, and I’ll open this up to everybody here. Is that something that you guys were excited about? I guess it was a tenant with a good history, I presume, right?

Victor:
Exactly. So there’s a lot of different ways and a lot of different, I think, philosophies around inheriting tenants versus getting them out and placing your own. So for this particular one, they were already paying market rate, they wanted to extend, they’re up-to-date on their rents, and we had the rental verification just to confirm that they were indeed actually paying their rents every single month, and they were very happy with the management company that was already in place. So there was no reason for us to go ahead and withdraw them, just to go ahead and have another 30 days on market of placing a new tenant. Also, just the buyer themselves, knowing the buyer, knowing their disposition, incredibly risk-averse. We needed to remove as many variables for this client as possible in order for them to say, “Yeah, this is something I want to go forward on.”
So when we could bring a turnkey deal that was recently built in a good area, that already had a tenant and management in place, so you had no downtime, and you didn’t have the question of, “Well, how long is it going to take to rent, and what’s it going to rent out for?” It was a perfect, perfect deal for that particular client.

Rob:
Awesome. And how did you demonstrate value for the client walking into this?

Victor:
Identifying these deals is something that we go through every single day. So we’ve got a full-time analyst on staff, and just finding these properties, something like this, and having your RAS, your reticular activating system, engaged and being able to say, “Hey, I know a client who this would fit perfect for.” I’ve got my real estate goggles on, and I know that this doesn’t hit a 1% target, but it will hit that PITI payment coverage, and it will be a great opportunity for this out-of-state client who wants to remove as many variables from the transaction as possible.

Rob:
Love it. Awesome, man. Well, it sounds like a pretty killer deal. I mean, getting a little bit of cashflow out of it, inheriting a solid tenant, that same seems like a slam dunk to me.

Victor:
Slam duck is right. And like you were saying before, they don’t have to be sexy. The business isn’t all gunpowder and rock music, so.

David:
But that’s a great example, if your goggles are just cashflow, cashflow, cashflow, you miss an opportunity that, like you said earlier, your first deal, seven years of breaking even to have a paid off property free and clear that’s going to cashflow massively in seven years. Is that a terrible strategy? Well, maybe if you’re 64 years old and you don’t know if you’re going to make it that long. Okay, possibly. But I mean, for a lot of people, that actually makes a ton of sense. And Rob said, when you bring in the tax benefits, you could build really big wealth by having the right goggles to look at your properties through.

Victor:
Well, David, think about this. That property that they’re picking up right now for 750, and paying $6,500 a month on, and they’re going to own free and clear in seven years, that place is going to be worth a million bucks. It’s going to be worth a million bucks in the next seven to 10 years, they’re going to have a totally paid off asset. And the buyer, he’s an anesthesiologist and is 35 years old, he’ll be work optional at that point, especially if he keeps continuing to pick up one deal here or there every single year. So I think it’s a phenomenal option.

Rob:
Yeah, true man. That’s true. Yeah. Okay, so you’ll have quite the setup in seven years going back to that first deal. Very cool. Let’s bring it on over to Matt. Matt, do you have another deal that you can take us through?

Matt:
Yeah, so I have another deal I call Ridgewood. I have a client that I’ve worked with a few times before, he was looking to do a flip, and ended up finding a property off-market, but he did not have all the funds to purchase the property. So I agreed to partner up with him, and act as a debt partner, so I actually gave him some private money to get the deal closed. He paid for all repairs, and then we listed it, and got the property sold once he was done with all the rehab. So I’ve done this with a few clients, and I’ll do it with all clients, but for other clients that are looking to do that, I also have access to a lot of hard moneylenders, and other local lenders that may need… If you do need those resources, they’re available in my network. But this property was purchased for 225, he spent about 85,000 in rehab, and we ended up getting it sold for 410.

Rob:
Okay. And what was the profit on that 410?

Matt:
225 is what he purchased the property for, then he spent about 85 on rehab, and it sold for 410. He did have to pay commissions and selling costs out of that as well.

Rob:
And so when you say that you’re the debt partner on this, does that mean that you are actually the… Are you funding everything, or are you really just funding the down payment and the carrying costs on the hard money?

Matt:
So, great question. So he had $150,000 of his own money, so we kept the… The loan-to-value was really low on this, and so basically I came in, provided 50% loan-to-value, and then he had the capital for all the repairs. So it was minimal loan cost for him, but it’s still a very safe loan option for me. And then we ended up getting the property sold and I made a commission on that, and then he made a profit doing the flip, and was able to do the flip that he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do.

Rob:
Nice, nice. Okay, so you walked into this, even with the value that you’re bringing from the debt partner side of it, you’re still actually taking the commission from the sale of it as well?

Matt:
Yeah, so one of the reasons that we were able to get the 410 listing price, which was the highest price in the neighborhood by far. The next available comp was 330 in that same neighborhood, so we really pushed the bar in this thing, is because he did the flip exactly right, rehabbed the property perfectly. We went in there with professional photography, a bunch of drone footage, and really put the gas pedal on the marketing in order to get that price.

Rob:
Cool. And did you find the deal on the MLS as well? Did you say that already?

Matt:
So this was an off-market deal, as far as the acquisition, and then we took it to market when we listed the property for sale.

Rob:
How did you find it off-market?

Matt:
Through a wholesaler partner that I have.

Rob:
Oh, okay. Great, great, great. David, anything else on this one?

David:
I’m curious with this connection you have with the off-market wholesaler, how are you working as an agent between the two worlds, where you work for a broker and you’re selling houses for clients, but then you’re also helping clients buying properties through wholesalers?

Matt:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s a great question. So it really depends on the deal, each deal is dependent. Sometimes there’s a marketing fee, other times it’s… I’ll basically introduce my client to them and then if it’s a flip, they agree to let us list the property once it’s done. And then we’re not making any commission on the front end, but we’re making commission on the back end once the property is listed for sale. Other times if it’s a rental, and they’re going to hold it as a rental, they may agree to have this… Property manage the property or something of that nature.

David:
And I also just wanted to highlight, while we’re talking about this real estate goggle thing that keeps coming up, this is a great flip deal. Well, everybody’s stopped looking for flips because they’ve been told buy and hold cashflow, quit your job, is the only way to go. And they’re passing up on six-figures of money that could come in useful to put towards a cash flowing property, right? What if that property that didn’t cashflow would if you put another a hundred grand down on it? But we’re missing that because we’re not looking for value add opportunities and what I call buying equity. So well done there, Matt. I could tell you’re a hardworking guy. Thank you for that. Kim, coming back to you, what about your second deal?

Kim:
I got a very unique and different deal, and actually it was for my husband and I, for our business. And we had been looking for office space to buy for about nine months, and we were downtown, it’s packed down there, paid 700 a month for parking. It just had gotten crazy. So I was desperately looking for something and I really wanted to office hack. I know people probably don’t hear that often, but just like a house hack. And I wanted to make sure that we had room for other tenants in the building, or there were other units, or whatever the case may be. So I found a building on Crexi, which is a commercial platform, and it had been on the market one day. And I went to see it, already another offer on the building, and they wanted 1.475.

Rob:
What? 1.475 million?

Kim:
475, yes. And I said, “I don’t want to pay that.” I’m like, “Okay, let’s flip this over.” It was 4,900 square feet and a two-story building, and actually found out it was one office at the time that we looked at it, but had found out that had really originally been four offices, two up, two down. So I went back home, and I penciled in the numbers. I found out what the square foot price was charging for rents, and it just didn’t make sense. I mean, it was okay, but we were going to be in one unit. So I said to my husband, “This looks like a great co-working space.” And he’s like, “What? No, we don’t know anything about co-working, Kim.” And I said, “It’s not that hard.” And so I did a lot of homework on it, checked the comps, checked out the competition, and we ended up buying it. We negotiated to 1.4, and I also negotiated for a brand new roof of 40,000, and I also negotiated for 5% commission.
So I ended up getting 110,000 at closing, and we spent 225 on our rehab, and now the building is worth 2 million. So I am three months in now.

Rob:
That’s amazing, that that is very cool. So let’s just walk through these numbers really fast. It was 1.475 million, you knocked them down to 1.4, and then you also knocked them down a little bit on the commission, which is 5% instead of 6%, right?

Kim:
I got 70 for that, and then I got another 40 for the roof.

Rob:
Oh, right, right. Okay, cool. And so basically you’re in roughly 1.3, you said you renovated for about 225k, meaning all in 1.5, 1.6?

Kim:
I mean, yeah, I would… Spend like 110,000 or something like that out of pocket.

Rob:
And so now you’ve added three to 400k in equity just from this sneaky little maneuver.

Kim:
And what’s nice is that when you start to pencil it out… Oh by the way, all the furniture I negotiated to.

Rob:
Oh, okay. It was all furniture you wanted to keep and stuff?

Kim:
Yes, to me it looked like a co-working space. So it’s pretty cool, I may be replaced a few things, but all of it was here. And I have 19 desks, and I charge 250 a month for those. I built out two offices, and I have a third one downstairs. So I have three private offices, one’s 850, one’s 1,100, one’s 1,200. And then I offer hot desk, where they can pop in and out, and that’s 100 a month. And then I also offer virtual office space, where basically just have an address, and we scan their bills. And then also beyond that, I also have a brand new sign out front where I have several spots on the queue where they can advertise as well.

Rob:
Well, you’re not really supposed to drop amazing stuff like this at the very end of the podcast, but that’s okay. That’s okay. So I don’t have a… Man. Yeah, you’ve really got the wheels turning up here. But I do want to ask, at what point, because you said the building is now worth 2 million. At what point do you start putting that on a cap rate, and selling it as a business, commercial real estate, all that stuff?

Kim:
Okay, Rob, you sound like my husband. He’s like, “I think we could sell this right now.” I mean, obviously we would make a lot of money, but I’m like, “What am I going to buy next? It took me nine months to find this building.” So I mean, I don’t really want to take any money out of it. Somebody said they think I could get 2.2, because I’m getting ready to put solar on there. I’m like, “Maybe. Maybe that’s a hot commodity.” But again, it takes me three years to recoup that cost, because that’s 100k.

Rob:
Well, I just meant more like, the real estate itself sounds like you’ve forced the appreciation there, but there is a business attached to it. So I do wonder if there’s a little bit more to that purchase price, or a little bit more to the 2 million than meets the eye.

Kim:
Yeah, true, true, true. I mean, because it wasn’t something that I ever… I own two property management companies and a real estate brokerage. I’m like, “What the hell do I know about doing coworking?” But I’m like, “Well, we’ve managed forever, managed short-term and long term, I think I can do this.” And I’m actually running it through my short-term software, because I’ve set up the podcast room in there, set up the conference rooms in there, so they can go in there and book their times. And I mean, it’s working out perfect.

Rob:
That’s amazing.

Kim:
Yeah.

Rob:
That is so cool.

Kim:
So right now, we’ve got about half leased already. We just did our ribbon cutting two weeks ago, and my goal is to be at 10,000 a month, and my note is seven.

Rob:
And you’re at about five right now?

Kim:
Yes.

Rob:
In two weeks? Outstanding.

Kim:
No, no, no, no. A couple months.

Rob:
Oh, oh, sorry.

Kim:
Some of these people. Yeah, I mean, but yes, we officially opened two weeks ago.

Rob:
Got it, got it. Still, that’s very cool.

Kim:
It’s a cool thing. And what I want to mention to everybody here is that, I know sometimes maybe commercial scares people, but don’t let it. And my commercial buildings, I make the most on positive cash flow on those, and I like to do triple net leases, which is where you put those expenses back to the tenants with regard to your taxes, your insurance, all this. So keep it in mind. I mean, there are a lot of buildings out there, like this, that are 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 square feet that are pretty cool to buy. And the rents here are really great because it’s a very entrepreneurial spirit here. So you have a lot of people that don’t want to be in those big high rises and that kind of thing. They want their own building, their name out front. And I mean, it’s something to keep in mind.

David:
Well, commercial properties are designed for the purpose of making money in cash flowing, they’re built for that reason. Residential properties, we have Jimmy rigged them to work that way, but that’s not what they were intended to do. They’re intended to reside in, not have commerce operating, so… And it’s just funny that so much of the information that we’re sharing has geared towards residential real estate as a way to make it make money, and that’s where all the creativity comes in. But it’s a lot easier when you take a property that was intended to make money and you use it to make money, just isn’t going to be passive, like you said. Several years of looking, or nine months of looking, several months of working, a lot of time and energy put into it. But the result is you got that castle that people keep saying isn’t out there.
So my opinion? Drop the expectation of passivity, drop the cookie cutter approach that every single deal needs to look the same thing, and you’re just going to hit control C, and then control V four times a year for the next 10 years, and have 40 properties. Bring the skills you have, like you said, Kim. I understood short-term rental, I understood medium term rental. I took my same software, my same approach, my same skillset, I applied it to this world, and it made sense. I’m thoroughly impressed with all three of you rock stars. You’re doing a great job of representing the real estate profession, and I’m happy to have you here on BiggerPockets. Before we get you out of here, we give you all a chance to tell people where people can find out more about you. How about you, Matt?

Matt:
Yeah, so you can find me on our website, [email protected], or of course on BiggerPockets, biggerpockets.com/agents.

David:
And Victor?

Victor:
Victorsteffen.com. And then of course, on the AgentFinder app on BiggerPockets.

David:
Do people ever get you mixed up with Graham Stephan?

Victor:
Graham Stephan? Not too, too often.

David:
You look nothing like him, and your name is spelled differently, but still.

Rob:
You never know, it could happen.

Victor:
You never know.

David:
Thank you for that. Kim, how about you?

Kim:
Also AgentFinder, and Kim Meredith-Hampton on almost all the social media, and hamptonrea.com.

David:
There we go. And my favorite California girl, Rob, where can people find you?

Rob:
You can find me over at Robuilt… I don’t know. That’s not a California… You could totally find me at Robuilt. There we go. On YouTube, on Instagram, on all of the… On MySpace, Xanga, WordPress. All of them, all right? Find me there, and then on the RSS feed, and-

David:
Pinterest, are you on there?

Rob:
On Pinterest, that’s right. You can find me on Pinterest, and then be sure to leave us a five star review if you enjoyed today’s episode so we can get served up to new audiences and teach them how to do this real estate thing. What about you, David?

David:
There you go. You can find me at davidgreene24.com, or davidgreene24 all over social media, including YouTube. And please do, we love to hear from you guys all, and we really appreciate that you’re listening to us here on the podcast. We know you could be getting your information from anywhere, but you’re choosing to come to the biggest, the best, and the baddest real estate podcast in the world, which makes you smart, and we love you for that. Everybody, thank you so much for being here. This has been a fantastic show. I think typically people don’t get information like this unless they pay for it, we are giving you guys the nitty-gritty. Now, if you guys would like to find an agent that’s on the show or a different agent, you could check out the BiggerPockets’ AgentFinder at biggerpockets.com/agentfinder to connect with one of the guests on our show, as well as other investor-friendly real estate agents.
It’s fast, free, and easy to use. Just search a market like Tampa, Atlanta, or Dallas, enter your investment criteria, and select the agent you want to contact. I am on there myself, out here in California, a bit of a California girl myself. That’s biggerpockets.com/agentfinder to match with these market experts today. Thank you everybody. Can’t wait to see you on the next show for another update, please continue finding deals for your clients and helping people build wealth, especially if they’re one of our audience members. I like to see BiggerPockets people become the winners more than everyone else. This is David Greene for Rob, California Gurls. What is the Katy Perry line, Rob? It’s like some alliteration, right? What does she say?

Rob:
In the song? California girls, we’re undeniable. Daisy Duke’s bikinis on top.

David:
Okay, I’ll try that. This is David Greene for Rob, California girls are undeniable. Daisy dukes and bikinis on top. Abasolo signing out.

While creating a website for your small business is a great first step to expanding your audience and catering to your customers’ needs, building a website alone is often not enough to attract new visitors to your online store. One effective tactic is to improve your website’s SEO, or optimize your site to rank at the top of search engine results. This will not only allow current and potential customers to find your website with ease, but it will also ensure they have a more positive user experience once they’re on your site.

Even if you’ve never delved into SEO before, there are many simple yet effective steps you can take to improve your site’s ranking. Here, nine business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council recommend the easiest ways small-business owners can give their SEO efforts an impactful boost.

1. Increase High-Quality Inbound Links

Increasing inbound links from high-quality, high-authority sites in your space can be an effective and inexpensive tactic for boosting your SEO. Inbound links can increase your search ranking, lend credibility and drive referral traffic. Of course, you’ll want to choose your targets wisely—known experts and authoritative sites are preferred over obscure, low-traffic blogs. Pursuing backlinks from businesses offering complementary services to yours can be a great marketing strategy and may also give your SEO a boost. You can offer a link exchange, which means you’ll add a link to their website on your site if they’ll do the same for you. – Samuel Saxton, ConsumerRating.org

2. Create Consistent, Authoritative Posts

Leveraging consistent blogs to boost SEO is a simple yet effective strategy for small businesses. Creating high-quality, authoritative, keyword-rich content can improve your brand’s search engine rankings and trust. This will drive more organic traffic, which results in more organic sales. Beware of purely AI-created content. Use AI for strategies and outlines, but always create unique content in your brand’s voice. Always amplify through social media and include relevant calls to action for your readers. When it comes to word count and frequency, my agency’s most successful clients—from public companies to local pest control service providers—average around 1000 words and post at least once per week. Don’t confuse word count with fluff; ensure engagement is always at the forefront. – Ron Lieback, ContentMender

3. Improve Site Speed

A simple yet effective way for small businesses to boost their SEO efforts is to optimize their website’s page speed. Slow-loading websites can lead to higher bounce rates and lower search engine rankings. By optimizing images, minimizing code and leveraging caching techniques, businesses can improve their website’s performance and enhance the user experience. This change can positively impact SEO by increasing user engagement, reducing website abandonment and signaling to search engines that the site provides a seamless browsing experience, potentially leading to higher organic search rankings. – Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

4. Ensure Proper Use Of Keywords And Tags

Sometimes the simplest changes can be done at the keyword phrase and tag level. Some small businesses don’t even know what phrases to target. Even if they do know what to target, they have not put those terms into title tags, headlines or in the page content, so they are never going to rank. Always check over keyword phrase targets and make sure they are being used properly (and not competing with each other). – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

5. Go In Depth On Your Topics

One simple yet effective way small businesses can give their SEO efforts a boost is by catering to topic depth when creating relevant content for their intended audience. Search engines, especially the market giant Google, prefer a well-thought-out and detailed page over a dozen with thin content. So, it’s important you ensure that the content you publish on your site provides detailed information about the topic and helps readers find answers to their questions. This will help you climb the search engine results pages and outperform other players in your respective industry. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

6. Conduct Regular Content Updates

Content updates are by far our biggest initiative in 2023. Updating old content doesn’t take long compared to ideating and crafting new articles. An easy and simple hack is updating years and numbers across stats, and adding an extra paragraph for clarity. Updates can be supplemented with quotes, stats and additional ideas. Listicles can expand and grow in length with regular updates following the “skyscraper” technique. The organic boost for up-to-date content is high. – Mario Peshev, DevriX

7. Set Up A Google Business Profile

We have advised several of our small business customers to use Google Business to boost their SEO presence. A Google Business Profile is very easy to set up and it helps small businesses rank quickly on local keyword searches. When customers look for small businesses, they typically look for local companies, and Google ranks the optimized business pages. – Piyush Jain, Simpalm

8. Leverage User-Generated Content

One simple and effective way small businesses can boost their SEO efforts is by leveraging user-generated content (UGC). Encourage customers to leave reviews, testimonials or feedback on your website or social media platforms. Not only does this provide valuable social proof for potential customers, but it also generates fresh and relevant content that search engines favor. UGC enhances your website’s visibility, credibility and engagement, improving search engine rankings. By incorporating UGC into your SEO strategy, you can organically increase website traffic, attract a wider audience and establish trust with both search engines and potential customers. – Andrew Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings

9. Add A Table Of Contents

One way small businesses can give their SEO a significant boost is by adding a table of contents to their site’s pages, especially if you’ve been producing long-form content. As a result, your visitors will be able to effortlessly access the information they’ve been looking for without having to scroll through an entire page. Not only will it help improve your search engine rankings because you offer a seamless user experience, but it will also give your pages a chance to appear as feature snippets at the top of the search engine recommendations. – Chris Klosowski, Easy Digital Downloads

Home prices across the U.S. had the highest quarter-to-quarter gain since 2015, as potential homebuyers are getting pushed out of an increasingly expensive market. 

The median single-family home value rose 10.2% from the first to the second quarter of 2023 to $350,000, a report from real estate data firm ATTOM found. It’s the biggest quarterly increase in almost the past decade.

Median home prices in 565 of the 574 counties analyzed in the report (98%) were less affordable than in prior quarters, more than double the number of counties that were unaffordable two years ago before mortgage rates went up. This means only 2% of counties examined were more affordable than their historic averages. 

Buyers Are Feeling the Pinch

It’s unclear if the increase in prices is temporary or signals another extended price surge, but “house hunters are feeling the pinch,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM.

“The U.S. housing market has done an about-face following a downturn that threatened to usher in an extended period of flat or falling prices,” he said. “With that has come another blow to how much house the average worker around the country can afford.” 

Looking at data from publicly recorded sales deeds and average wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ATTOM found that affordability among homeowners worsened in the last quarter. The portion of income required to buy a home shot up to 33%, above common lending practices of a 28% debt-to-income ratio. 

Still, wage growth has outpaced housing prices in 74% of the counties analyzed—a reversal of trends during the same quarter in 2022, when prices were growing faster than wages in 91% of counties.

Counties with the Highest Sales Growth

The report found that 91% of counties analyzed had seen an increase in housing prices. They rose at least 5% in two-thirds of markets, hitting a peak in nearly 40% of the counties examined.

Among the 47 counties with a population of at least 1 million, the biggest year-over-year increases in sales prices were in the South, with most counties located in Florida. A housing shortage and surge in population have caused prices to skyrocket in the Sunshine State.  

The Bottom Line

While inflation and mortgage rates have steadied, there is still a bit of uncertainty around the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve is also poised to raise interest rates in July, which could further increase housing prices. But if the stock market cools down and the economy falls into a recession, housing prices could drop. 

The third quarter of 2023 will be key to knowing if the housing price boom is set to continue or will fade as it did during the same period last year. For now, though, real estate remains a seller’s market.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

Black Knight’s Andy Walden and CNBC’s Diana Olick join ‘The Exchange’ to discuss pandemic era migration trends impacting the real estate market, top states for population growth, and how demographics and homebuilding trends are moving home prices.

In recent years, wineries and winemakers have become increasingly conscious of the environmental impact wine production and distribution has on the environment. Many companies are now altering farming practices to be more climate friendly, and considering sustainability in packaging and distribution. However, the weight of wine bottles, which accounts for 29% of wine’s carbon footprint, is still one of the largest issues the industry faces.

I recently spoke with Ron Rubin of Ron Rubin Winery, Sonoma County Vintner and founder of BLUE BIN, to learn more about the launch of the brand’s new 100% recyclable wine bottles, and how others in the wine industry can join this trend.

Ron told me how BLUE BIN is the first premium wine packaged in a 750ml bottle made from 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) plastic and that these bottles are smaller and lighter than conventional bottles, shatterproof, and fully recyclable. As a veteran in the wine industry, Ron also shared his journey and reason behind founding BLUE BIN and the state of the wine industry.

Christopher Marquis: Tell us a bit about the inspiration behind the Blue Bin brand? Where did the name Blue Bin come from?

Ron Rubin: There were a number of inspirations behind the BLUE BIN brand. As a Certified B Corporation one of the impact area pillars is prioritizing and taking care of the planet, which the Ron Rubin Winery is committed to doing.

After some research we learned that just the weight of wine glass bottles (from 420 grams to 850 grams) accounts for 29% of wine’s carbon footprint, so finding a solution to reduce the carbon footprint was a motivating factor – BLUE BIN’s bottle weight is 52 grams.

Additionally, I read a study by Sonoma State University that showed 90% of all wine is consumed within a one week or two week period after purchased, so we felt there must be a better alternative to the traditional glass wine packaging that would be better for the environment and perfect for majority of wine drinkers who consume a bottle within two weeks.

The inspiration behind the name came to me last summer when I was driving to our winery on Route 116 (Gravenstein Highway) outside of Sebastopol, and I noticed all the blue recycling bins out on the road ready for pick up that day. As we were exploring alternative bottles to combat the waste from traditional wine bottles, we discovered that we could make a 100% rPET bottle, and knowing that blue bins are where all the recycled material comes from to produce rPET, BLUE BIN felt like the perfect name.

Marquis: What was the process like to make a 100% recyclable bottle made from 100% recycled material? What sets the bottle apart?

Rubin: We worked in partnership with Amcor, the global leader in responsible packaging solutions, to create the BLUE BIN bottle – the U.S’ first wine bottle made out of 100% recycled materials. Without the leadership, support, and working in partnership with Amcor, BLUE BIN would not have been launched. This was a most enjoyable collaboration and learning experience for all.

With BLUE BIN’s first-of-its-kind bottle, we hope to inspire more wineries to no longer purchase glass bottles weighing more that 420 grams and to consider using 100% recycled PET wine bottles for wines they produce that are consumed shortly after consumer purchase.

Marquis: How can other wine brands follow in Blue Bin’s footsteps to create a more sustainable + planet-friendly wine industry? Do you have any recommendations for wineries that want to become B Corps?

Rubin: More wineries need to be open to using some type of alternative packaging (rPET, aluminum, lightweight glass) for wine in their businesses. Being cognizant of packaging and which is better for the planet will create a more sustainable and planet-friendly wine industry.

My recommendation for wineries wanting to become B Corp Certified is to JOIN the movement to become part of a global community of businesses that meet the high standards of social and environmental impact while being committed to continuous improvement. Small steps can help our planet and beginning those steps as soon as possible will help create a better future for people and the planet.

But the process was time consuming, difficult, and exciting all at the same time. From start to finish it took us 651 days. I think more wineries haven’t embarked on this journey because of the commitment to transparency and rigid scoring on 5 impact areas in the B Impact Assessment (Workers, Environment, Governance, Customers, Community), which are all pillars Ron Rubin Winery proudly adhere to.

Marquis: The wine industry has been deeply impacted by climate change, whether fires or droughts. What’s the future of wine look like, and why is it important for consumers to take action to drink more sustainably?

Rubin: The future of wine can look positive as long as winemakers and consumers work together to create positive, planet-friendly decisions throughout the wine making and purchasing process. As we know, the wine industry can have huge impacts on the environment, from packaging to farming practices. Along with BLUE BIN, there have been many wineries and advocates that have spoken out about ways to make the industry better for the planet, including packaging, which we know accounts for 29% of the industry’s carbon footprint.

For consumers, a good first step is for them to do their research and seek out and purchase planet-friendly alternative packaging to enjoy the wine they love with less environmental impact to planet Earth.