By Dr. Peter Kim of Passive Income MD, WCI Network Partner
[Editor’s Note: There are a lot of fancy ways to invest in real estate but this post is all about how to get the best real estate returns when you are the direct owner of a property. Enjoy!]
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: real estate investments are some of the best ways to achieve wealth and financial freedom. And if you’ve read my other posts, you know that there are quite a few ways to invest in real estate – I’ve mentioned everything from crowdfunding to syndications and funds.
Appreciation
First up is simply appreciation in value. This is the concept of a home’s value increasing over time. We all know home values can fluctuate significantly—we saw a lot of this way back in 2008. Still, in the long run, the overall value of homes seems to increase at a rate at least in line with inflation (around 3-5%). That’s passive appreciation as a result of time.
However, there is also something called forced appreciation. This is where an owner can help increase the value of a property by improving the property itself. For example, you might renovate the kitchen and bathrooms in a home enabling you to sell it at a higher value.
If it’s an apartment building, you might be able to raise rents and lower expenses, thereby increasing the overall net operating income. This, in turn, increases the building’s value.
Cash Flow
This is simply what’s left over from the rental income when the expenses are paid off each month. If there’s a surplus, that’s positive cash flow. If there’s a deficit, you have negative cash flow.
For example, if you collect $5,000 in rent each month and your expenses are $4,000, then your cash flow is $1,000 each month. Cash flow puts money in the bank and is essentially monthly income that you can live off of.
These first two categories are the only ones most people think about when it comes to real estate investing. But as you’re about to see, there’s two more!
Taxes
Owning a property is somewhat analogous to being a small business owner, and because of that, you’re able to deduct quite a few expenses.
Some of the more common deductible expenses are any sort of funds put towards fixing up the property, paying property management expenses, and tax preparation.
Another big benefit is depreciation, whereby the IRS allows you to determine the value of the actual building, divide that value by 27.5 (the useful life of a property as determined by the IRS), and deduct that precise amount each year.
For example, if your rental property (the building itself) is valued at $500,000, you would divide that by 27.5 years (which equals ~$18,000) and be able to deduct $18,000 as a depreciation expense each year for 27.5 years. This deduction allows you to report a smaller profit to the IRs, thereby reducing the amount you ultimately owe in taxes.
Of course, as I mentioned in a previous post, using a 1031 exchange may allow you to defer taxes from any sale indefinitely.
Mortgage Principal Paydown
Most properties are purchased using amortized loans, wherein a portion of the monthly loan payment goes towards interest and a portion goes towards reducing the principal. That means that every month, a little bit of that principal is being whittled down and your equity in the property is increasing.
In essence, by having your rental income pay off your mortgage, they’re buying you the property little by little.
Tying It All Together
Now we need a quick example to tie it all together.
You purchase an apartment building for $800,000 and put down $250,000 (like I did). Let’s say this property produces $30,000 per year in cash flow and appreciates in value at 4% per year. After 10 years, this property could be worth $1.18 million, and you would’ve earned $300,000 in cash flow.
Assuming a normal amortized paydown schedule, in 10 years you’re left owing $430,000 to the bank, so your equity in this property is now $750,000 (=$1,180,000-$430,000), which is triple your initial investment of $250k. Adding up the cash flow, you’ve also received $300,000 in cash flow during this time.
Of course, this $300,000 over time is subject to taxes, but because of the benefits afforded real estate investors (like depreciation), you would definitely walk away with more than if it was simply all capital gains.
Did you follow that? It’s important because putting these four things together is how many real estate investors achieve very nice returns over time. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means, but over time, these methods can pay huge dividends and create great wealth.
If you’ve considered real estate investments in the past, utilize these four methods to get the best return possible.
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I would add the use of leverage to boost your returns. That 3-5% appreciation due to inflation can be multipled by 2-3x (or more) if you use financing and don’t pay all cash for an investment property. Of course, leverage cuts both ways (downside as well as upside).
Excellent point. Not really a source of returns, but certainly magnifies them.
Nice and simple explanation. I learn something from every article you post.
I’ve made a lot of investments since becoming a doctor and none of them even comes close to the return I’ve received from direct ownership of realestate. After 15 years, my realestate investments were producing more cash than my total living expenses. That included having the realestate bubble burst right in the middle.
I’ve run into a fair number of doctors with a similar experience. The “buy one property a year” for 10-20 years retirement plan does work.
I don’t disagree with anything in this post, except that one important factor was swept under the rug: direct ownership of real estate is not an investment, it’s a business. That’s an important distinction to make. It is not a passive source of income. Yes, the rewards can be great, but so is the work involved, even with a property manager.
I invest in MF properties through syndications now, because I don’t want to run a business.
Absolutely agree and I do the same thing. I did NOT enjoy being the sole direct owner and manager of a property. It didn’t help that the property was ten states away.
Totally agree. I did the direct ownership thing and it was a total headache.
By far my lowest returns for me have been with direct real estate ownership. All of it my fault at every level. Educating your self on cash flow, cap rates, etc. instead of doing back of the napkin calculations is key. I agree, I’ve never found direct ownership to be passive in any way.
What are ‘MF’ properties ?
Multi-family, like duplexes and apartment complexes.
So lets say I want to start investing directly in real estate, can someone recommend some good resources to read etc. I don’t mind it being more work, but I have zero idea how to get started.
Thanks!
I have five real estate books on my recommended list: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/best-financial-books-for-doctors/
Great, Thanks!
The website “Biggerpockets” seems to be one of the main hubs for everyone involved in RE– from newbies to pros. I learned a lot last year, but haven’t frequented as much, since I’m still in my last year of med school and won’t be able to invest for a few more years
Thanks for the link, I have heard coach carson on the choose fi podcast as well. I think I will do a lot of research this year, and consider investing in real estate in the next few years. I will stick with low cost index funds for now.
Just sold two properties I purchased in 2011 for huge profit. Both of my long term tenants left, and did not want to go through the trouble of renting after upgrading the properties (new floors / carpet and paint, etc). I did nto do 1031 either, and instead going to use carried forward losses by dissolving a LLC.
I have been investing heavily in equity crowdfunding RE with K-1’s, and have been very satisfied. At least on my own, I can no longer find real estate bargains I did few years ago. Recent tax changes have made equity real estate investment even sweeter.
I will definitely look into purchasing another property once market corrects. Could be next year on in 10, but correct it will. In the meanwhile, I am spreading my money in multiple crowdfunding equity deals,
Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your success!
One thing to be aware of is that depreciation has to be paid back when you eventually sell. It’s a good way to potentially avoid taxes now and pay it back at lower capital gains tax later on the real estate sell.
Of course, if you exchange, exchange, exchange, exchange, die, that depreciation is never paid back.
True that! I guess always best to die before having to pay taxes! 🙂
I think a better way to think about it is that it is better to not pay taxes rather than pay them. You’re going to die at the same time anyway.It’s like monopoly- exchanging houses for more houses and finally for hotels.
As I’m sure you are aware at time of sale there is both depreciation recapture taxation and capital gains taxation. Depreciation recapture is often quoted as 25%, and that is true until you exceed your basis which can happen in long holding periods and then it is taxed as ordinary income.
“taxed as ordinary income”… my tax accountant shares that statement with me all the time. That’s when I get worried.
I have friends into rental properties big time. They are always on their phones talking to property managers and constantly making small decisions about roofing repair, HVAC issues, plumbing upgrades so on and so forth. There is also the dimension of securing quality but inexpensive property insurance.
I own my own medical office building and have three tenants but my office manager is also the property manager. He is constantly chasing down problems, satisfying regulatory requirements (aka fire safety checks). It’s a lot of work and hassles. The tenants seem to be happy. We managed to secure a 10-year note at 3.95% fixed on the property so low interest rates have helped but there are still taxes and that’s a big drag on performance. Maybe the new tax law will effect “pass through income” for property rentals but I think there are limits on this tax relief.
Iv’e looked into owning some nice properties in a resort area where rents are high and property appreciation is likely to continue to go up (this area is under no threat from flooding, hurricanes or fires…) and on an after-tax basis and also accounting for the fees and charges that dependable property management companies charge I am better off continuing to invest in QQQ, AMZN, AAPL, BRK.A … so on and so forth. Held for a long interval of time these investments are taxed at long-term capital gains rates which are favorable. Plus, I receive no phone calls about leaky roofs, backed-up toilets or the heat doesn’t work…
My father was a dentist in So Cal whose passion was real estate, obtaining his agent license, then brokers license. He bought and sold apartments, homes, and commercial buildings, and developed 10-20 unit commercial buildings. This eventually allowing him to have FIRE at 55 years of age. With my father at 90 years old now, the parents still live off the cash flow from their rental units.
However, I also saw some of the pitfalls of the cyclic real estate market that are not mentioned in the post. He stressed over un-rented units, and I saw some of his friends and colleagues (physicians, lawyers, and judges) declare bankruptcy after too long a period of negative cash flow. An investor can get burned without attention to all the details, or the ability to pick out an undervalued property or envision the potential of vacant land. Even so, there’s still a lot of sweat equity that is required for a successful real estate venture.
Negative cash flow generally comes from overleverage. Putting down 1/3, 1/2 or more makes the cash flow issue much better, reduces stress, and allows the investor to get through bad periods easier. But when you try to buy 10 properties with nothing down, it doesn’t take much to upset the apple cart.
well, recent housing crash showed us that even conservative home owners, as well as conservative investor got burned. When properties fall 40 – 65 %, it was the heavily leveraged that got bailed out. The conservative / responsible borrowers got the short and the long end.
Funny thing is that my personal residence is now barely above pre-crash value, yet I made a killing buying distressed properties when market crashed.
There were some limited bail out kind of stuff, but there were plenty who didn’t get much of a bail out at all, both on their primary homes and investments!
Real Estate is an excellent vehicle to develop personal and generational wealth. The new tax bill still enables landlords to deduct property taxes and mortgages as business expenses. The 20 percent pass-through deduction piles on an additional advantage. With depreciation, it’s conceivable that landlords pay very little to no taxes on passive income earned. If your children inherit the properties, they pay no taxes due to the estate tax exclusion and benefit from a step up of the value, keeping the existing property tax rate. I agree with WCI, don’t over leverage, especially with variable loans. The key is to secure fixed rate loans, factor in 6 month vacancies, maintenance, management and repairs. It essential to transition from active income to passive income when you approach retirement. The IRS rewards passive income. I’ve been able to retire early using income earned from rentals without having to withdraw equities from stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
But how do you manage the properties, hire a property manager? I have no skill set in fixing plumbing problems or HVAC issues and do not wish to do roofing or cleaning. Rental properties incur constant maintenance issues and constant attention even on weekends and evenings and holidays. I thought there was an income limit on the 20% pass-through deduction such that this deduction fades away above a certain AGI. Then there is insurance on the property in the event of fire, theft, flood, liability… Quality insurance is not cheap that’s why Warren Buffett sings songs and is always happy. I own some rental properties and fortunately my property manager is willing to go in all hours of the day and night.
I manage the properties that have long term and good paying tenants. The problem properties are managed by a property manager. Yes, you do get the unexpected calls, but I have a list of plumbers and handymen that do all the work. For me, it really isn’t much work to call a handyman. My parents managed their own properties for decades and I learned from them to operate more efficiently. Again, you have to factor all maintenance costs. The pass-through deduction does have limits, but anything below those limits can be deducted. Having primary and umbrella insurance is critical. I am a true believer in equities, I’ve been investing in index funds, mutual funds, stocks, bonds etc since I graduated. I never imagined that real estate would outpace those investment vehicles. Every case is different, there is no cookie cutter way to get to FI.
The limits are only on docs, lawyers, financial advisors etc.
It only phases out for service professionals like docs, not for businesses like rental properties or websites like this one.
Very educational post and insightful comments. We just sold an accidental rental property. It was a house we couldn’t sell when I changed jobs. I read a few books and learned the vernacular. My mom was the property manager and there was minimal headache.
However, the few issues I had to deal with took time away from my family, work, running, blogging and guitar. I learned that unless I was going to work part time as a doc, I would never enjoy real estate. So maybe down the road, but until then I’ll stick with REITs in Roth. I get that they aren’t the same as direct ownership, but the name of my game isn’t most wealth, it’s wealth:life balance.
Btw, Passive income MD is a good addition to the WCI network. I’ve been reading that blog for a bit now. Good for you PIMD.
I would concur with AGoodLifeMD regarding the time commitment, and I do think that some medical professional careers are not as well suited for direct ownership of rental properties. As a surgical sub-specialist in academics, I do not own my office space, so building a four-plex for my office and renting out the other three units is out of the question. In addition, the time required to run a clinical practice, teach medical students and residents, perform basic or clinical research, and write book chapters leaves little room for managing rental units.
I started with SFH but it’s hard to get positive cash flow in HCOL areas. Turnkeys were a turnoff because the incentive structure between the owner and the turnkey company are not fully aligned. Plus I wasn’t comfortable owning property thousands of miles away.
This led me to commercial real estate syndication. These are for accredited investors which most doctors are by income criteria. You do have to do your due diligence and invest with high quality sponsors, but the rewards can be substantial.
I’ve kind of ended up in the same place as you for similar reasons- funds and syndicated properties, some online, some not. Owning the properties myself, whether managing myself, hiring a manager or going turnkey is too much hassle. REIT index funds are too correlated with the market to put my entire real estate allocation in. So I’m in the middle, some hassle, some loss of liquidity, but still with hopefully great returns and low correlation without too much trouble.
If your property appreciates, are you still able to claim the depreciation benefit mentioned in the “Taxes” section of this article?
Yes. It turns out appreciation is not the opposite of depreciation when it comes to real estate. Totally separate things.
Thank you!
I’ve been hearing about RE syndication for a while, but haven’t gotten into it so far. What are some of the reputable ones? How do I find out more about how to evaluate different syndications, etc?
More info coming in a post in about 10 days.
Thanks for sharing the valuable information. Even though I’ve been in this business for years now. I always try to learn and keep up with the industry developments, and I do believe that it is crucial to investigate and learn more before you start out with investing. I always find and share interesting information to learn and help others as well. I found a good one today as well: https://hammerzen.com/5-tips-to-make-profit-from-real-estate-investing-for-beginners/