I just got back from spending 10 days at the Real Estate Guys annual Investor Summit, an event I’ve been looking forward to since attending last year’s Summit.
And it didn’t disappoint.
After starting at a resort in Ft. Lauderdale, we boarded one of Celebrity Cruises’ newest ships, Celebrity Beyond, and set sail on an 8-day itinerary to the “ABC” islands: Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.
Also attending were some of the biggest names in real estate, investing, and macroeconomics…including Ken McElroy, Peter Schiff, George Gammon, Tom Wheelwright, Brad Sumrok, Brien Lundin, Brent Johnson, and Jason Hartman…along with a host of successful yet humble “summiteers” spanning from real estate investors to niche business owners.
I was humbled to have the opportunity to speak about “running the numbers” on a panel featuring Rich Dad Advisors Ken McElroy and Tom Wheelwright
My wife and I both had an amazingly fun time.
But…this was first and foremost a business trip for me. In addition to hearing from thought leaders, I used the summit to network, ask questions, learn from those ahead of me, and gain clarity on the road ahead.
So today I want to share a handful of takeaways that are especially relevant to passive real estate investors.
Looking into the real estate crystal ball
The general theme from several speakers, including Ken McElroy, Jason Hartman, and CRE lending expert Anton Mattli, was pretty simple:
Right now is a great time to buy real estate.
The consensus from the speakers and other investors I spoke with was that if we’re not already at the bottom of the real estate market cycle, we’re darn close. There’s still a gulf between buyers and sellers, particularly in multifamily, but more deals are starting to hit the market (which I’ve started seeing myself).
Anton went as far as saying that we’re “looking at one of the best buying opportunities since 2010-2011,” particularly for distressed deals taken back by lenders.
Supply and demand
Another theme that came through in several presentations is the importance of supply and demand.
Forget all the macroeconomic arguments about money printing, the national debt, government spending, etc. The power dynamic of supply and demand almost always matters more.
Regardless of how you slice the data, in the US, we don’t have enough housing units (supply) for all the people looking for housing (demand).
Whenever demand is greater than supply, prices go up.
It’s truly that simple.
Top real estate markets
Driving this point home, Ken McElroy said:
Real estate is all about people. It doesn’t do well in places where there’s not a strong supply of people creating demand.
Ken went on to show one of the most impactful visuals of the summit:
It shows net migration by county during 2021-2022. Blue is people moving in, orange is people moving out.
His main point: the blue dot counties are where to be investing in real estate.
And during a presentation later in the summit, multifamily educator and investor Brad Sumrok gave his top 10 markets of 2024. Not surprisingly, almost all of Brad’s top markets are in “blue dot” counties:
Other takeaways
I was blessed to have a few meals with legendary sales trainer Tom Hopkins. A few takeaways him:
The language we use and our attitude when using it shapes our outcomes. For example, when someone asks “how’s business?” always respond with an enthusiastic “unbelievable!” It can be true whether business is good or bad, and enthusiasm is infectious and will influence the other person to want to do business.
Everyone should work to become better at education (adding value to the lives of others), motivation (ability to move others from a no or maybe to a yes), and having fun (everyone loves to have fun with others).
And finally, we received some unexpected bear safety tips from well-known bear Peter Schiff (the man who, as Robert Helms likes to say, has predicted 19 of the last three recessions).
Here are Peter’s (not fact-checked) tips:
Bears don’t always go for the slowest person first, so the idea that “you don’t have to run faster than the bear, just everyone else” is a fallacy.
Encounters with black bears and brown bears should be handled differently. One you should be calm, and the other you should make as much noise as possible to scare the bear off. But Peter couldn’t remember which was which. 🤷♂️
My opinion? It’s best to take all of Peter’s bearish thoughts with a large grain of salt. (See what I did there?)
Hanging out with Jason Hartman in Bonaire