Choosing Your Market | REI USA
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Choosing your market is an important decision. Being in the right one can often make the difference between success and failure. Join Stacy Rossetti as she breaks down what you need to know when getting into real estate. Stacy examines market growth, the pandemic’s impact, and population to help you make a great choice. Learn more from Stacy’s insights as you go on your journey to financial independence.

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Choosing Your Market

I’m Stacy Rossetti and I have been teaching people how to invest in self-storage for years. I typically invest in self-storage and I teach people how to get started in self-storage investing on the first Tuesday of every month at 5:00 Eastern. I also teach beginner real estate investors, which is the first session. If you want to get started, hop on and hang out with me a couple of times. I’m going to guide you on how to get started. I’m also going to point you in the right direction of which teachers you should be visiting and talking to. That is me in a nutshell. I started wholesaling and rehabbing years ago. When I got pregnant. I transitioned over to storage and I have been investing in self-storage ever since. I understand the concepts of residential and commercial development. I typically lean towards commercial, but I can help guide you in any way on both sides.

Choosing Your Market

Let’s get started on how to choose the market. How do we figure out where we are going to start? I wanted to talk a little bit about what is happening in the world. The economy has been up and down over the last couple of years due to COVID. We do not know when it is going to end. Everybody keeps saying, “It’s going to end this year,” and it never ends. It is what it is and there is no reason to stop and wait for anything else or for COVID to be over before you start investing in real estate.

Even in the downtimes and uptimes of real estate investing, there is always an opportunity. You have to learn how to go with the market. You have to understand the real estate investing market, the United States economy and the world economy. You have to educate yourself on how all that works. You do not have to know a lot but just in a nutshell, and keep an eye on it.
[bctt tweet=”There’s no reason to stop and wait for COVID to be over before you start investing in real estate.”]

Coronavirus And Its Impact On The Market

I am the type of investor that understands the concept that in every single type of market out there, there is going to be an opportunity to make money. We want to keep that in mind as we go through which markets we want to invest in. Another thing I wanted to bring up is the difference between a V and a U-shaped recession. We are going into recession and over the last couple of years from 2000 to 2020, we had ups and downs in the market. We had mostly ups, but you have these recession periods also.

For instance, in 2008, we thought that the worst was happening, but it was nothing compared to what happened over the last couple of years and what is going to happen. That does not mean it is going to be a bad time period. What it means is there is going to be a lot of opportunities and I’m excited about it. I hope that you are gearing up and in the right place because you are educating yourself on how to get started and what to do. There is going to be a huge opportunity in the downturn and you should be preparing for it.

REU Stacy | Choosing Your Market

Choosing Your Market: Even in the downtimes of real estate investing, there’s always opportunity. You just have to learn how to go with the market.

 

Another thing I wanted to point out was, what impact do you expect the coronavirus to have on the housing market? This is a good question. Out of this question was, what do you think is going to happen to the housing market? What has happened to the housing market? Do you think that the coronavirus has had a good, bad or no effect on the housing market? This poll was conducted in 2021. I thought it was very interesting to see what people were thinking about what is going to happen to the housing market. The past couple of years for me have been the most successful years I have ever had. I cannot wait for the future because every single year, it gets better and better.

That does not mean that I have not done anything. What that means is I have worked a lot harder to make sure I can get the deals I need to get done. You have to know the impact of the coronavirus. What is happening in this poll stems from the type of personality that you have. You tell me what you think but for me, the impact of the coronavirus has had a good effect on the market. Over the last couple of years, I have had the most successful years that I could have had, but if you talk to a lot of people, they are going to say that the coronavirus is ruining the market.

I feel that the best investors truly understand that the market is the market. How you get out there, work and grind, do your thing, do your deals, talk to sellers and owners, that is where you are going to create the impact that you are going to want. For me, the coronavirus has had a good effect and I’m looking forward to the years ahead. I’m super excited about what is going to happen. I hope that you have the same mindset that I do. The coronavirus is a tick in the time of history. As people, we are resilient. We can get out there and create the life that we want as long as we do not give up and keep moving forward.

We all know that the real estate market has changed. How has it changed? Now that it has changed, how do we choose the market that we want? It’s different. The truth of the matter is you have no idea what is going to happen. All you know is you need to be doing the best that you possibly can. You do not want to stop looking for properties, contacting sellers or giving up. I know that passive income is the best way to build long-term wealth. I know that we are going to get through this. I’m not here telling you that I have all the answers to everything. All I know is I’m not going to let something like the coronavirus or whatever you want to call it stop me from creating the life that I want.

Financing Your Investments

What should you be doing now? First, you need to be getting your credit in order and get some cash if you have cash. If you do not have cash, you can get cash from lenders and partners. All of the storage facilities that I have and the properties that I have ever bought, I’m borrowing other people’s money to purchase them. I have done $20 million in a transaction in the last couple of years. I have borrowed money to do all that. If I can do it, you can do that too.
[bctt tweet=”We are resilient. We can get out there and create the life that we want, just as long as we don’t give up and keep moving forward.”]
You have to learn how to find and raise money, talk to private lenders and hard money lenders, and get your money in order because to invest in real estate, you have to have money. Let’s make sure that we get our money in order so when it comes to the downturn over the next couple of years, you will be ready to purchase. Get all of your marketing in order, whether or not you want to wholesale, rehab, buy rental properties, do notes or land, whatever you are interested in. If you are not talking to sellers or owners of properties, you are not going to find deals.

It is hard to find deals on the MLS or online. You have to talk to the owners. You have to get your marketing to the owners. Your job is to get your money in order and to get meetings with owners. Above all, do not stop educating yourself on how to invest in real estate. The whole purpose of REI USA is to put you in front of all of these amazing investors so that you can educate yourself and learn what you should be doing. Think of REI USA as a small group coaching session. That is what we are here to do, to guide you and tell you exactly what to do.

There is not a lot of people in the sessions. You could ask the teachers any questions that you want. I always tell this to everybody I talked to in the beginner session. You have two questions that you should be asking a teacher every time that you see them, “How do you find the money to do all the deals that you are doing?” Ask them that so they can tell you how they find their money. The second question you should be asking teachers is, “What marketing are you doing to find the deals? What marketing are you doing and how are you finding your money?”

REU Stacy | Choosing Your Market

Choosing Your Market: You do not want to stop looking for properties. You do not want to stop contacting sellers. You do not want to give up.

 

As you get back into the training sessions and start going to all these small group calls, ask your teachers that so they can tell you what they are doing. I keep telling everybody, “You are in the right place.” I love REI USA. The underlying purpose of REI USA is the secret to living is giving. These teachers are not getting paid essentially. They are teaching out of the kindness of their heart. I wanted to put a platform out there where everybody has access to investors and does not have to go broke to learn how to invest.

That is the purpose of REI USA, so take advantage of them. I have done a lot of transactions over the last few years and I’m here to help you and guide you. My family has a little tiny house that we used to live in. We sold it and moved into an RV. We now travel full-time and invest in real estate. Isn’t that the dream, to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want? We travel in an RV and invest in self-storage.

Growth, Stability And Decline

I wanted to get into the three types of markets which are growth, stable and declining. When you are looking for markets, you want to be in either a growing or stable market. You do not want to be in a declining market. How do you find out whether or not markets are growing, stable or declining? There are a lot of different websites out there where you can look up what the statistics are and check how the market is doing. I use Radius. There are many different ones. Make sure you google them to check what the statistics are. Another thing that you want to look at when you’re identifying the right market is population. Is it growing or declining?

Is there job growth in the area? With the coronavirus, everybody is leaving. We want to check to see where everybody is going, which areas are everybody going to, how long the property has been on the market, and how much affordable housing is in the area. What are the cap rates in the area? For commercial property, you want to be looking at cap rates to see if they are low or high cap rates. What are the landlord laws? We already know that. Some areas are struggling with this.
[bctt tweet=”You want to be in either a growing market or a stable market. You do not want to be in a declining market.”]
Are the downtowns growing? Are they getting revitalized? If you know some areas where downtowns are getting revitalized, that is a good area to be focusing on. When you are determining the market that you want to be in, you want to be looking at things like, what can you afford? What type of financing are in the market? What types of financing or out there for that area? Researching the local market like, what are the cap rates in that area? How much are the mortgage payments in that area? Are they super high or not? What profit can you make on your deal?

Who’s Buying Houses?

More desirable places are going to be more expensive, but you have to make sure you can buy at the right price. Sometimes it is better to be in an affordable housing area just because you might make a little bit more money on the backend. You have to check it out and see. I was going to ask this question. What types of people over the next couple of years are going to be buying houses? This is something to keep in mind when you are out looking for property. The answer is the Millennials. The Millennials are buying more houses than any generation out there. They want houses that have offices. They want to be virtual. They have a different type of way of looking at housing. Gone are the old school days.

REU Stacy | Choosing Your Market

Choosing Your Market: Sometimes it’s better to be in an affordable housing area, just because you might make a little bit more money on the back end.

 

Which type of person is not buying? That is the next question. The answer is the ages 75 to 84. The elderly are staying put. They are not selling their houses. Karen is our list broker for REI USA and she is going to be speaking next. She can attest to this, but when you think about, “I need to buy a list,” maybe you do not want the list for ages 75 to 84 because they may not be selling as much as some others out there. You want to keep in mind that these people are staying put. They are not selling their properties.

Where Do I Go?

Texas, Florida and Arizona are the fastest-growing states in the country. The population increases are in Texas, Florida and Arizona. The highest gross increases are in Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. The states that lost the most people are New York and Illinois. California is going to be coming up there. The highest new home construction cities are Dallas and Houston. Dallas is booming. The Atlanta growth is in the top ten. The top city growth is Boise. It is this random city that nobody thought about, then in the last couple of years we are like, “Boise is growing.”

Colorado and Austin are second in growth. Many people are moving to no income tax states. We became domiciles of Texas for that reason. We are residents of Texas because we do not want to be paying taxes. Everybody is thinking that way. We live in an RV. We are traveling around and trying to figure out where we want to settle. That is the whole purpose. A lot of people are doing that. How to get to know your market? You want to drive for storage. I am huge on driving for storage. Driving for dollars is the same thing.

If you are interested, use DealMachine. We have a great discounted rate as an REI USA member so you can get out there and drive for dollars, take pictures of your property, and then send a letter to them right in that app, or find boots on the ground first. If you live in Austin, Texas and you want to invest in Florida, all you need is boots on the ground people to help you to go look at properties. We travel in our RV and all of our facilities are in Georgia and Florida. We never go to any of our facilities.

We have boots on the ground people to manage all that for us. You can truly be virtual if you want to be. I hope that gets you started. There are 25 of us teachers for REI USA to help you get started. I teach every other Tuesday. I teach The Beginner Real Estate Investing group. I also teach Self-Storage 101. Come hang out with me if you are interested in learning those two topics.

 

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About Stacy Rossetti

REU Stacy Rossetti | Self Storage InvestingReal Estate Investing – My Journey, My Career My Life

As a real estate investing expert and coach, I have built my name on the results I have created – for myself and for my students.

Investing in real estate has changed my life, opening doors for me and my family and affording me an outlet for all my creative and entrepreneurial energy. Through scaling up a renovation company in Atlanta with hundreds of transactions to learning to invest passively through creative financing deals and storage facilities, I have not only overcome many trials and tribulations, but systematized and organized my days so that I can run several successful businesses.

Day after day, I work hard at what I do, striving to stay ahead of the curve by building on my knowledge and making shrewd decisions. This did not happen overnight, of course. My early days in real estate were slow, exhausting and hard, but little by little, I earned a sense of what worked and what I needed to do to achieve consistent results. Because I taught myself all this learning through experience and mentors, the process was gradual and required the utmost diligence on my part.

Today, I own and operate REI USA and StorageNerds. REI USA is an online education and networking platform that is exactly the tool that I would have wanted when I was getting my start, something that aspiring and established investors can turn to, a means to cutting your learning curve dramatically. Together my husband Pete and I currently own and operate eight storage facilities. Investing in self-storage is our passion and how we have decided to build wealth. It is the best kept secret in the investing world and I don’t know why more are not investing in it.

In addition to investing in real estate myself, I have since discovered another passion in my life – coaching and empowering others. Whenever I see that I have guided someone toward a breakthrough or helped them to transform themselves professionally, I feel deep fulfillment, confident that I am on the right path and reinvigorated to go out and do even more.

As a coach and teacher, I specialize in helping my students navigate real estate investing, rehabbing, and storage facilities. These are all complex, involved topics, but I have honed my ability to communicate the intricacies – and found ways to demystify them efficiently. Seeing the light go off in my students’ eyes, I know that the magic is happening, and in everyone I teach, I recognize myself – wide-eyed, hopeful, firmly believing in all the opportunities that real estate investing can present. For years, I have connected with my students through workshops, offering a glimpse into the thought processes and techniques that have led to my success.

In order to share my knowledge with as large an audience as possible, I have currently expanding beyond person-to-person coaching, developing a Self-Storage Investing mastermind and group coaching mentorship called StorageNerds. This mastermind draw on my years of experience in real estate and self-storage investing and break down my ideas and strategies in a way that even beginners can digest.

My passion is to help beginner investors learn to invest in real estate and my mission is Affordable Financial Literacy. REI USA embodies this mission by engaging those that truly want to learn to invest in real estate but don’t want to go broke doing it. Over the course of the last five years my husband and I have spent many years perfecting how we find, fund and run our storage facilities so we can be anywhere in the world. Our facilities are truly passive income and we love sharing our tips and tricks on how we manage them through our StorageNerds mastermind.

Renovating my first home in 2012, I knew that I had stumbled upon something big – a calling, a vocation, a passion. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to stick with real estate and give it everything that I had. Collaborating with my husband has been a bonus, and I am grateful every day for the career that he and I have created together.