Field notes for real-estate investors.
Deep dives on data, markets, and the craft of finding deals most people miss. Published daily.
Category: investor-strategies · clear
Foreclosure Volumes Are “Historically Low.” Banks Just Repossessed 42% More Homes Than Last August, and Texas Took a Third of Them.
ATTOM's August report shows completed foreclosures up 42% year over year to 5,794, with Texas alone taking 1,835 of them. Underneath it, MBA's Q2 survey shows FHA serious delinquencies up 227 basis points against 6 for conventional. Here's why the national average is hiding a single-program credit failure, which states convert it into buyable inventory first, and the PropGPT screens that build your 2027 acquisition list now.
Mortgage Rates Hit 7.06% This Week. Builders Already Cut Their Prices 6% — For the 16th Month Straight.
NAHB's August data shows 35% of builders cutting prices an average of 6% and 63% stacking incentives — the 16th straight month of both — while mortgage rates climbed to 7.06% ahead of the Fed's September meeting. Here's why the builder discount already on the table beats waiting on a rate cut, and how to find it by metro.
National Home Prices Grew 2% This Year. Morgantown, West Virginia Grew 12.9% — and Investors Aren't Buying There.
Redfin's July 2026 college-town data shows Morgantown, Syracuse, and Tuscaloosa appreciating 5-6x faster than the national average — while still cheap enough to cash flow. Here's the university-anchored filter for finding the next one, and the demographic-cliff risk to underwrite around it.
Banks Are Sitting on $875 Billion in Loans They Can't Extend Anymore. Smart Money Is Buying the Paper at 40 Cents on the Dollar.
A record $875 billion in commercial and multifamily mortgages matures in 2026, with another $652 billion coming due in 2027, and banks are increasingly selling distressed notes at steep discounts instead of extending them. This piece breaks down where the real stress is concentrated, what non-performing notes actually trade for, and how individual investors can access this market before the underlying properties ever reach the MLS.
Airbnb Said World Cup Hosts Would Average $4,000. Real Bookings Show Most Cities Never Got Close — Here's the 2028 Playbook
Airbnb and Deloitte projected the average World Cup host would earn $4,000 this summer on an assumed 60% occupancy rate. Real booking data shows several official host cities never got close — some filled fewer than 1 in 4 nights even as viral $6,000-a-night listings grabbed headlines. Here's what actually predicts a mega-event payday, and how to use the lesson to position ahead of the 2028 LA Olympics.
Airbnb Grew 52%. This Rental Strategy Grew 136% — and Almost Nobody's Talking About It
New joint data from Furnished Finder and AirDNA shows mid-term rentals (30-89 day furnished stays for travel nurses, relocating families, and corporate contractors) grew 136% since 2019 — 2.6x faster than short-term rentals — while mostly avoiding the STR regulatory crackdowns hitting Airbnb hosts nationwide. Readers get the underlying numbers, the tenant demand drivers, and a due-diligence playbook for underwriting a property as an MTR instead of a standard lease or Airbnb.
Only 21% of Investors Look Off-Market First — New Data Shows the Other 79% Are Losing the Best Deals
A Q4 2025 investor survey and a separate OfferMarket poll reveal that while only 21% of investors say they look off-market first, 40% of recent purchases actually came from off-market sources — nearly double the rate of investor attention. Here's what the data shows, the mistakes investors make chasing off-market deals, and how to build an off-market pipeline with PropGPT.
$3,500 to $6,500: How Co-Living Investors Are Doubling Rent From the Same Single-Family Home
Co-living turns a 5-bedroom home from a $3,500/month single-family rental into a $6,000-$7,000/month income property by renting each room individually to working professionals. This article breaks down the underwriting math, the best markets in 2026 (Denver, Austin, Colorado Springs, Nashville, Indianapolis), common execution mistakes, and five copy-paste PropGPT prompts for market screening, zoning research, and side-by-side deal analysis.
Subject-To: How to Acquire Real Estate at 3.25% in a 6.5% Rate World (Without Applying to a Bank)
When rates sit at 6.5–6.9% and foreclosure filings are up 14%, investors who know Subject-To are acquiring rental properties with inherited 3–4% mortgages — no bank approval required. This guide breaks down the mechanics, the math (you save $740/month on a $300K deal vs a DSCR loan), how to find pre-foreclosure deals, and exactly how to use PropGPT to underwrite and close them.
BRRRR in 2026 Will Leave $35,000 in Every Deal — Here's the New Math That Actually Works
With fix-and-flip ROI at its lowest since 2008, investors are pivoting to the BRRRR strategy — but most are running 2020 numbers in a 2026 market. This piece breaks down the updated LTV, DSCR, and market requirements that determine whether you pull your capital out or leave $35,000 trapped in every deal, with a market-by-market rent-to-price breakdown and a 3-year portfolio scaling model.
A Top Self-Storage CEO Just Called This the Greatest Opportunity Since 2008. The Data Backs It Up.
Self-storage transaction volume jumped nearly 40% to $5 billion in 2025, the SmartStop CEO is calling this the greatest buying opportunity since 2008, and the supply pipeline just hit its lowest level since 2017. This piece breaks down the three-tier cap-rate map (Class A at 5.5–6.5%, Class C at 8–10%, value-add at 7–12%), shows what the REIT earnings data says about the inflection already underway, and gives you five copy-paste PropGPT prompts to underwrite your first — or next — storage deal.