Feelings, Ethics, and Opportunities in a Downturn

We’ve known for a while that a recession was on the horizon. Many thought the staggering amount of student loan debt might trigger the market pullback. Then it looked like the collapsing oil and gas industry would be the downfall. But who could have seen a world wide pandemic leading to quarantine, sickness, death, and a…

Which Markets are Best for Passive Income?

Investors tend to stick with what’s comfortable and familiar even if it doesn’t check off all their objective boxes for investments, even in the case with passive investments where you’re partnering with a proven team. They tend to keep their investments close to home, but it may not be the best decision for your portfulio. As…

Which Yields Higher: Private Equity or REITS?

A recent article on MarketWatch touted, “These stocks have the highest dividend yields in the hot real-estate sector,” but a deep dive into the numbers revealed there was nothing to get excited about. ​​The article reviewed the past 12-month of returns for the 32 real estate dividend stocks on the S&P 500 Index. Of the 32 real…

How to Evaluate Private Real Estate Funds or Partnerships

When investing in a private real estate opportunities, there are few key calculations to quickly evaluate the opportunity to see if it’s a good match for your portfolio.  A property’s capitalization rate (“Cap Rate”) is the ratio of a property’s Net Operating Income (NOI) in the first year of ownership, divided by its purchase price.…

How to Profit from Real Estate Trends in 2020

With the United States currently in the midst of its longest economic expansion in history, the nagging fear of recession is in the back of every commercial real estate investor’s mind. Some wonder how the recession, along with other factors and trends, will shape the outlook for the commercial real estate market in 2020. According…

How to Evaluate Private Investments

Did you know that when you buy into either a stock, a bond, or a mutual fund, the issuing company or fund makes a prospectus available for your review before investing? How many investors know what’s in a prospectus and how many read one before investing? The answer to either question is probably “not many.”…

The 4 Types of CRE Investments and Which One We Prefer

Commercial real estate investments typically fall into one of four baskets – Core, Core-Plus, Value-Add, and Opportunistic. Each is differentiated by their levels of risk vs. reward with Core real estate investments on the low end and Opportunistic real estate investments on the high end of the risk-reward spectrum. Ideally, as a real estate investor,…

Look to Multi-Tenant for Outsized Returns

Commercial real estate (CRE) investors have a lot of options when it comes to placing their capital. Besides the different classes of CRE, including office, industrial, retail, professional, and multifamily, investors also have the option to invest between single-tenant and multi-tenant properties. When investing in single-tenant (including single-family) vs. multi-tenant (including multifamily) assets, there is…

Two Types of Investors

There’s an easy way to tell the difference between a retail investor and a sophisticated investor: look at the level of diversification in their portfolio. If you see domestic stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, and maybe a few foreign stocks, you’re dealing with a retail investor. If you see non-standard investment classes like commodities, private…

Rich vs. Wealthy: Where Do You Focus?

I recently ran into a lawyer friend of mine I hadn’t seen in years and had a chance to catch up. During our conversation, the subject of finances came up, and he started complaining about living paycheck-to-paycheck. I responded with shock. Wait! What? You’re a partner in a law firm making $400,000 a year! How…