The real estate market officially bottomed out in December of 2011.
It was nuts. There was financial blood in the streets. Foreclosures, motivated sellers, and deals galore. Loans were impossible to get but everyone knew there were once-in-a-lifetime deals to be had, and were fighting for them tooth and nail.
In the next few years I bought:
- a triplex in Angelino Heights for $450,000
- a Silver Lake 8-unit for $690,000
- a pair of retail storefronts on York for $225,000 (wtf right?)
- a house with a salon in front in Cypress Park for $300,000.
I didn't buy anything for two more years.
Those four properties were what I grabbed out of the smashed pinata of the last real estate collapse.
I've done just fine with all of them but on the whole…I think screwed up.
What I SHOULD have bought is crystal clear to me now.
- I should have bought houses.
- I should have bought houses that someone else had flipped.
- I should have bought in the best neighborhoods I could.
In investing, you can buy and renovate one home, or you can buy two homes. You should always get two homes.
I should have let some flipper sell me a house for $500,000 that he had bought for $300,000…put a tenant in it…and watch it go to $3mil.
I should have done that four times. Oh well.
BUT if we are entering another “opportunity market” I'm not going to make the same mistake.
I'm focusing on buying the most desirable, least regulated, easily financed, easily rented, and soon to be rarest thing in Los Angeles - houses.
My top articles, books, and favorite homes of the week linked below.
Until next Friday,
