One Rental at a Time presents Buying Vegas: Episode One

Buying Vegas: Real estate investing done the correct and exciting way

Who remembers the “get rich quick” personalities in real estate in the 1980s? Perhaps pictures of Carleton Sheets standing by his Rolls Royce in front of a big house or Tom Vu next to his boats and women come to mind?

I don’t believe in “get rich quick” when it comes to real estate. I think it’s “get rich slowly but get rich for sure.” I think it takes 10 years, and the first five years suck—but if you do it for 20, a lot of good things will come your way.

Carleton Sheets and Tom Vu try to make real estate investing seem sexy and exciting, but buying and holding real estate, if done correctly, is typically pretty boring. 

But is there a way to make buy-and-hold real estate investing sexy? 

Well, my new series Buying Vegas will attempt to do just that. While real estate investing is a long game—learning a market, meeting new people, figuring out a buy box, and acquiring cash flow rentals can be exciting, and I’m going to show you how. 

Episode One sets the stage for our venture into Vegas. I give a behind-the-scenes look at the One Rental at a Time studio and my wife Olivia and I head to the whiteboard to map out our plan. We figure out the questions we need to answer about the Vegas market before we proceed. 

Olivia and I built out our Fresno investment portfolio together and we work as a team, so it was important to me that she was on board with diving into the Vegas real estate scene. 

We came up with three areas we want to look into:

1. Buy-and-hold: What Olivia and I are used to; a re-run of the market research we did in Fresno 20 years ago, but in Las Vegas this time

2. Condo hotels: A compelling aspect of the Las Vegas real estate market where I’ve seen others succeed

3. Room for rent: An area me and Olivia aren’t particularly interested in, but we think it is worth investigating

In each of these areas, we plan to network and meet people who can explain the ins and outs of the property types, look at some potential properties to buy, evaluate the yield and cash-flow potential, and ultimately decide on what would be the best deal to pursue (IF there is a great deal to pursue, that is.) We will learn assets, see assets, and then evaluate the team and resources we would need to make it happen. 

You also can’t talk about real estate in 2024 without mentioning the persistence of doomers and crash bros. I’ve been in real estate investing for 20 years and I can tell you that it is always hard. Every single year is hard. I believe the doomers are preying on fear, wanting you to freeze and do nothing. But if you do nothing, you are guaranteed to fall behind. 

I’m asking you to do the work and believe it is possible. Figure out what an average deal looks like for your buy box and then only do great deals. 

This series is not just about Vegas. My hope for this series is you can see that learning a new market, networking, focus, and daily discipline work. You can repeat everything we are doing, find a buy box in your market, and reap the benefits of your hard work. 

ResiClub Chart of the week: 

Last week, ResiClub’s Lance Lambert wrote about strained housing affordability across different U.S. housing markets. The takeaway: the extent of affordability strain varies a lot by market. 

Among U.S. non-homeowner households, only 15.1%, can afford to buy an average-priced home in their local market given current mortgage rates, home prices, and incomes, Lance wrote. 

The metro with the highest percentage was Pittsburgh with 25.6%

The metro with the lowest percentage was San Diego with 2.6%.

Number of the week: 41.4%

This week, several people sent me the Kobeissi Letter post claiming that due to a historically high share of homeowner’s incomes going towards mortgage payments (41.4%), we are due for home price declines. 

I want to dispel this claim with facts.

First, this number is not even a recent peak. It is down from the recent high of 44.2%—and home prices have climbed since we were at that high. 

Second, we’ve been here before. In the early 1980s we saw a similar (if not higher) share of incomes going towards mortgage payments, but what followed was not a crash in housing prices which continued to climb nationally in 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1984. 

What we did see in the 1980s was a crash in transactions—something we’re seeing today too. Transactions is where there will be pain, not prices.

Join the One Rental at a Time Skool Community

Just a few weeks after our launch, the One Rental at a Time community on Skool is already more than 100 members strong.

We’re creating more opportunities for you to interact with those who have achieved financial freedom through real estate investing. 

Being surrounded by people at all stages of their real estate investing journey is crucial to your success, and joining us on Skool is an easy way to do just that.

It is only $20 to gain access to my monthly (or more) live streams as well as various millionaires answering your questions in real-time and connecting with people who can help you. 

Learn more about how I am organizing the ORAAT Skool community content and calendar.

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