Instead, he died owning two houses with a combined value of less than $200,000, with almost no cash in the bank, and living mostly off Social Security.

Dad was a sort of real estate pioneer. He was smart, a millionaire back when a million dollars was real money, one of the founders of Cincinnati REIA, and the teacher of what was probably the most popular real estate investing class in Southern Ohio.

Through DECADES (he bought his first apartment building in 1964 and his last rental house around 2004) of work and sacrifice, he built a portfolio of about 100 apartments and 150 single-family houses.

And then he got Alzheimer’s.

Long before the official diagnosis, we could all see that something was wrong with his executive functioning.

A roof would leak, and he would spend weeks waffling about whether it needed to be repaired or replaced. Properties sat vacant longer and longer and deteriorated further and further. The manager of one of his apartment buildings essentially stopped managing it, leaving a heavily mortgaged building with a broken boiler and only two tenants in 13 units—one of whom wasn’t paying.

Dad knew, at least off and on, what needed to be done.

But increasingly, he couldn’t make himself do it.

And because his entire identity was wrapped up in being the brilliant real estate expert and self-made millionaire, he became fiercely protective of his right to keep running the business. Even after he understood that he had Alzheimer&rs ... Read More…

Ok, so this is me making the craziest-sounding post I've ever made here, but here goes.

I've talked to a lot of people now who've both been in real estate for decades AND who've done a lot of different kinds of deals, and so far, they all agree that we eventually develop what I call "Real Estate Spidey Senses".

What it feels like from the inside:

You’re looking at a deal where everything seems perfectly fine. The numbers work. The seller/borrower/partner is agreeable and aligned. Maybe the title and inspections even look clean. Nothing has actually happened that should make you nervous.

But something...

...Maybe it's in the seller’s story. Or a single conversation you've had with the proposed partner, out of many. Or the way the deal is coming together.

Something you can't put your finger on makes you think:

"This deal is going to blow up."

You can’t tell exactly HOW it’s going to blow up. You can’t point to a specific problem. You just have a feeling that something you don’t know about yet is going to present itself—and when it does, the whole thing is going sideways.

(There's a reverse to this, too: the rare scenario where the seller has said "No" in a seemingly no-going-back way, or maybe even signed a contract with someone else, and your spidey-tingle says, "I'm going to buy this one...")

Since in real life, I have very little in the way of "intuition", I have to think that tis is long-term, accumulated pattern recogni ... Read More…

If you don’t do subject to, this probably isn’t going to interest you a lot, but if you do, here's a weaponized autism evaluation of the new FHA modification rules for ya:

I just talked to about the fifth FHA-insured loan holder in three months who re-defaulted after a loan modification in which both the interest rate AND the payment went UP.

I KNEW something was up, because after years of hearing, “We’ll just take all those back payments and shove them into a zero-interest, zero-payment partial claim second that you don’t have to worry about until you sell the house or pay off the first mortgage,” this seemed like a pretty clear change in HUD policy.

So I finally got curious and looked it up this morning.

And sure enough, the policy really did change on October 1, 2025.

Before then, FHA servicers were still using the COVID-era loss-mitigation rules. One of the most common solutions was to put the missed payments into a “silent second” owed to HUD—the thing called a “partial claim mortgage.”

Those were great for homeowners and, assuming we understood that the time bomb was there, for us as sub to buyers.

Because those partial claim mortgages have no interest, no monthly payment, and they let the homeowner keep the original first mortgage—with its original interest rate and payment.

That was obviously a HUGE benefit to someone with one of those 2.5%, 3%, or 4% loans.

But…and maybe right ... Read More…

The time to do big cosmetic renovations on your rentals is when property values and rents are climbing, and incomes are keeping up with rents.

In those scenarios, it’s easy to BRRRR your way out of $20k in new kitchens and bathrooms, and it’s easy to justify the cost of the improvements, because it’s easy to raise the rents to get an ROI on them.

Right now, might not be that time.

OF COURSE I’m not talking about roofs, furnaces, plumbing, electrical, or anything else that affects safety, function, or the long-term health of the property. Fix the leaking roof. Replace the furnace that can’t be repaired. Maintain the property properly.

And I’m also not saying “Buy the property at a price that doesn’t take into account that it will NEED that new kitchen to actually reach the After-Repaired Value.

Too many people are already fooling themselves by saying, “The ARV is $300k, but I only need to put $30K into it to rent it, so $210 is a bargain” when, in fact, it would need $80,000 in work to be worth $300,000.

I’m talking about tearing out a perfectly functional kitchen or bathroom so you can install granite countertops, trendy cabinets, and luxury finishes—and then charging another $100 or $200 a month to justify it.

I’m not convinced that’s what the market needs right now, especially in B and C areas.

Rents have already outstripped a lot of people’s ability to pay them. And neither ... Read More…

Ya’ll.

PLEASE stop asking general-purpose AI for financial and real estate advice.

Or…go ahead and ask it. But don’t automatically do what it says. 

I’m not saying AI isn’t useful. I use it every day. 

And there are people building specialized GPTs and AI agents that are trained on particular kinds of deals, documents, financing strategies, and rules. Some of those may be genuinely useful—especially when they’ve been built and tested by people who actually understand the subject. 

But asking Claude or ChatGPT: 

“What should I pay for this property?”

“How should I finance it?”

“Is this a good creative-financing structure?”

“How do I make enough money to retire?”

…and then making a major financial decision based on the answer?

That’s…not…wise.

Oh, you’ll get an answer. 

And the answer will SOUND very sensible and fact-based.

But here’s the thing about generic AI: It doesn’t actually know how to set an ARV for your specific deal.

I doesn’t know whether the rent estimate you gave it is realistic. 

It certainly doesn’t know that a 125-year-old house in that particular neighborhood probably needs a much bigger maintenance reserve than the generic percentage it pulled from somewhere. 

It doesn’t know whether your “creative” deal violates a state law, creates a tax p ... Read More…

Note: Laws and regulations regarding the advertising, registering, and formalization of private loans vary enormously state-to-state. Generally, these rules apply to the borrower rather than the lender, but even lenders should be aware of what the laws in your state say about these transactions. Of course, this article is not intended as legal, accounting, or other professional advice. Always consult with your legal, accounting, or other professional before making any investment.  Further, nothing in this article should be construed as an offering or solicitation of a security. 

Private lending is a strategy in which even moderate-income investors can easily get involved.

There are plenty of real estate entrepreneurs and rehabbers who want to borrow your money; if you let it be known you have as little as $20,000 to lend in most markets, someone will be right there ready to put that cash to work.

If all goes as it’s supposed to, it’s a truly hands-off investment; you just sit back and collect checks. And the return is oh-so-much better than other fixed-rate investments; you can expect to average around 6%–8% per year total (because higher-rate loans are generally also shorter-term; when you loan money to a rehabber at 12%, but he only uses that money nine months a year, that still works out to 8%).

But the big fallacy of private lending is that YOU, as the private lender, don’t need to know very much to assure that the deal goes well. A ... Read More…

If you don’t think that real estate investing is a relationship business, you haven’t been paying attention.

Your connections with other investors bring you local market knowledge, referrals to trustworthy professionals, funding, partnerships, and deals. Those relationships are what help you succeed, not just this year, but for years to come.

But these relationships don’t just happen for most people. You have to be intentional about building and maintaining them, just like you’re intentional (I hope) about building a rental portfolio, a buyer’s list, or a marketing plan.

REIA groups exist, in large part, to provide a platform for you to find and interact with like-minded folks who can encourage and help you be successful, but you have to do your part, too. Here are some tips for the 95% of us who aren’t natural connectors:

1. Be intentional about your professional development.

There’s no job you can have or business you can be in where your value isn’t enhanced by knowing more.

And in real estate, that value comes in two forms: knowing more simply means you can do more deals and make more money, but it also means you have more to offer your colleagues.

Knowledge is one currency that you can share to get what you need from others, and it’s a way of offering value to other people. Plus, it’s not fair to expect other people in the community to teach you every single thing you need to know about real estate. I ... Read More…

Indulge me in a fable, and see if it jibes with your current, or perhaps past, experience as a developing real estate entrepreneur: 

You’re standing on a sidewalk with your nose an inch away from a brick. It’s a good brick. You’ve studied it for a while, and you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s reddish, rough, and surrounded on all four sides by parts of other bricks. You’ve looked at it long enough to decide that it’s a pretty great brick. 

Someone walks by and asks, what are you doing? Looking at this brick, you reply. 

Are you sure it’s a brick you’re looking at? the stranger queries. You might want to take a step back, because there’s more to see here than you think. 

So, you take a step back, and you realize that he’s right: the brick you’ve been so obsessed with is just one of many. In fact, from your new perspective, you notice out of the corner of your eye that there’s also something else — a hole, with glass and wood in it. Is that important? What does it do? Should you spend any time finding out more about it? 

While you’re wondering, another passerby happens along and asks what you’re doing.

I’m looking at all these bricks, and this weird opening, you explain. 

No, step back: you’re looking at a wall, says your new friend. That’s a window, and it opens and closes to let air and light in, and that particular one ... Read More…

         Way back in the mid-90s, I went to a workshop taught by the great Pete Fortunato.

          Several times during this event, he mentioned deals he’d negotiated or financed with the help of what he called “financial friends”.

          At the time, I had two thoughts about this: first, “Why does a guy who’s been in real estate for 30 years and is probably richer than Croesus need other people’s money to do deals?”.

          And second, “That’s great for him—he has decades of experience, so I bet he both knows a lot of people and is able to impress them with all the deals he’s done. I wonder how long it’ll be before some of these ‘financial friends’ find me?”

          As time has passed, and experience and observation has filled in the blanks, I’ve discovered the answers to both questions.

          First, no full-time investor EVER has enough cash to do all the deals they’ll ever find.

          At the height of my father’s real estate empire, he had $40,000 a month in positive cash flow but was still buying 2-3 houses a month—one f ... Read More…

You got into this business for freedom, right?

Money freedom , yes. But also time freedom, and life-on-your-terms freedom.

But here’s a truth a lot of us don’t realize early enough—and it handicaps us:

Independence isn’t…Independent

At every stage of this country’s history, it’s been groups of people, acting together, that have secured the blessings of liberty for themselves and others.

From overthrowing British rule to ending the practice of slavery to suffrage to the civil rights movement and on through today, new freedoms have only come when enough people got together for a common cause, organized to achieve what they wanted.

Guess what? Personal financial freedom is ALSO a team sport.

No one builds wealth in a vacuum. No one protects their property rights to it by themselves. And no one makes it to the top without a whole bunch of people who have  their back.

Wanna do new things without messing up? You need vetted education and advisors.

Wanna scale? You need team members and financial friends.

Wanna get past the inevitable mistakes? You need partners and allies.

Wanna keep what you’ve built? You need a team that fights for your rights when the government comes knocking.

That’s us.

COREE isn’t just some “club”.

We’re a community of real people building real freedom—and making sure nobody takes it away.

We teach each other, challenge each other, help each other.

We h ... Read More…