How to Make 52% on Your Money with Maureen McCann

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How to Make 52% on Your Money with Maureen McCann

I am excited to have back in the show Maureen McCann. We chatted about what’s happening in the economy and what we can anticipate in the future. It was not meant to be predictive but our view on how resilient the real estate market is and why we think people should continue to take action even now. I wanted to continue that conversation because that went long. I wanted to continue that conversation this time and talk about the numbers. If you were to start investing in real estate now, what are the different ways that you could make money so that you can build wealth? Maureen is the queen of helping people understand what real estate portfolio can do for you. She is exactly the right person to talk to us about this. Before we move on to that, Maureen, you had a few other articles you wanted to share that talk about the big view on the market. Could you share that stuff with us first?

This is one from The Wall Street Journal. This was published on June 1st, 2020. This is relevant information. The headline says, Wall Street Bets Virus Meltdown Gives Landlords a Chance to Grow. The largest home-leasing companies have strong occupancy, rent collection, and expect demand for suburban houses to rise. There’s one thing I want to point out in this article right here. There is a company called Invitation. It’s the country’s biggest single-family rental company and they have over 80,000 doors. Here’s something interesting. They’ve reported record occupancy of roughly 80,000 houses and better than normal on-time rent payments in May despite the pandemic leaving millions of Americans unemployed.

This is true for my company. I don’t have 80,000 doors. I have 1,200 doors and still growing. A good friend of mine owns a company that has 6,000 doors under management. It’s the same thing. The rent collection is high. When you’re looking for an investment and something that’s more safe and secure during a pandemic, you’ve got 80,000 doors that the majority of the rent has been collected. I said the same thing in the last segment. I know that my good friends in this industry have the same thing. I want to read one more important little bullet point out of this.

It says, “American Homes 4 Rent, the second largest with 53,000 houses said it isn’t much below its own pre-pandemic levels of rent collection or occupancy.” This is what I want you to pay attention to. When I read this, I want you to think about what this says to you. The company said, “A $225 million venture to build rental houses that it struck with JP Morgan Asset Management in February was enlarged from $225 million to $650 million.” JP Morgan Asset Management is putting a bigger bet on single-family rental properties. Think about that. If JP Morgan Asset Management group and their leadership team is thinking that, “Why are you not thinking the same way?”

This is an interesting point because I can hear everybody saying, “I’m not JP Morgan. I don’t have millions of dollars. I can’t spread my risk. I can’t do all those things.” Here’s an awesome thing about real estate in the United States. We are so luckier here than any other part of the world. As the layman and the little guy, we are supported in many ways to buy real estate. That’s why one of the things that Maureen is going to talk about now. Even the little guy can do the multibillion-dollar strategy. Think about that. Where else can you do that? You, the little guy, can do a multibillionaire strategy. That’s where they make the money and that’s where you can make the money. You just have to get started and get started with people that are going to help you get there.

It’s one property at a time. You said something that was cool. There are products that are out to support us. We are the only country that has a 30-year fixed rate. That means you can lock in to cheap money for a long period of time. There is a lender or banker that’s willing to give it to you. They’re smart. If you were a banker, you’d go, “I’m going to create a 30 or 40-year note because I’m going to collect the interest on that for that period of time.” That’s super brilliant. As the consumer of the product, we can say, “I want to utilize that. Thank you, Mr. Banker, for giving me the money. I’ll happily pay you the interest. As long as there’s no pre-payment penalty, I’m going to get that paid off as soon as I possibly can so I have more cashflow coming to me later.”

There’s a high level but let’s dig in to rate of return. It’s my favorite topic in the whole world. Leverage is my favorite topic and that’s part of it.

When I was talking to Moneeka about this, I was sharing with her some of the conversations that I have with my investors. These are highly educated professionals. Sometimes, you make the assumption that they know certain things like how you calculate the rate of return. I have learned through experience that if you walk people through how to calculate the rate of return, what the formula is, and then you plug it into the five ways that real estate pays you, the light bulb in their mind illuminates. They go, “No one’s ever showed this to me before.”

“Why am I not taking advantage of that?”

Moneeka was like, “Why don’t you come on? Let’s talk about rate of return and how you calculate it.” I get so much mileage out of that conversation with my investors on one-on-one. We’re going to do it here collectively. As you’re reading, you have to get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, and you need to write this down. We are going to go through the five ways that real estate pays you. We’re going to plug in these numbers into this formula and it’s not hard. Once you get through it and you see how this works, then you’ll recognize why Moneeka and I are all about women in real estate and how real estate builds wealth. We want this for you. Get your pen and paper. The first thing I want you guys to do is title your blank piece of paper The Five Ways That Real Estate Pays Me. Say you because it’s going to pay you.

In order to create wealth, wherever you put your money in, look for a rate of return that is higher than the rate of inflation. Share on X

The first thing I want you to do is on the top of your paper write, ROR or Rate Of Return, ROR equals profit divided by equity. I’m going to give you a little backstory. My business partner, Clayton Mobley is a quantitative finance genius. He can run numbers in your head like Rain Man but he’s got a personality unlike Rain Man. For the young Millennials that never heard of Rain Man, he was a bright guy that couldn’t talk. He didn’t have a great personality on the outside. My partner is brilliant. He is so smart and younger than me. I love him for all of that and he taught me this because my background is Exercise Physiology. I picked my major because I wanted to avoid calculus. I looked at the syllabus to find out which course didn’t have calculus. That’s how I chose my major. I’m not kidding. That is exactly the truth.

Numbers are not my game but when you put dollar signs in front of the numbers, I get interested. That’s what he did for me. He showed me what the rate of return formula was. He’s like, “Maureen, rate of return is profit over equity.” I was still like, “I don’t know that means.” He’s like, “It’s easy. It’s what you make divided by what you’re having in the deal.” I’m like, “What I make divided by what I have in. Perfect. I got this. Done.” If some of you are still struggling with that, here’s what I did and what helped me. I took a Post-it Note and I wrote, ROR equals profit divided by equity. I put it on my PC so I saw it every single day until it was etched into my mind. You do the same thing if that’s what you need.

Here is what we’re going to do. This is where it gets fun because now this is where you can see the cash, earnings, and the money come through a single-family rental property. Let’s do it. The first way that real estate pays you is through appreciation. You own an asset. You hold onto it. You put a little bit of your money in. You borrow a lot of the bank’s money. The property year over year consistently increases in value. You may have some down periods but it comes back up. It’s one of those things that goes like this. Long-term buy and hold, the value of property for 10, 20, 30 years, you’re going to capture some capital appreciation. It’s just the way that it works. If you live in California, you know what I’m talking about.

In other markets, it’s more tempered and more moderate but it’s still money earning money for you. You’re earning that way. Across the United States, the average property increases in value 6%. Let’s take $100,000 property. I like simple math and easy numbers. The more complex it is, my mind goes, “More charades.” Let’s say, we buy a property for $100,000. Twelve months from now, it appreciated 6%. That means your property is now valued at $106,000. Moneeka, I’m going to ask you this question so you can answer it collectively for the audience. Is that $6,000 profit to you?

It’s $6,000 profit. It’s a lot higher percentage than that though.

That’s generally across the United States. I’ve got some zip codes in my markets in Birmingham and Huntsville that are appreciating 10% to 18%.

Let me say what I mean by this. You might be going into this. We’re talking about you put a little bit of your money in and you got a loan for the rest of it. We’re looking at $100,000 home. You probably put $20,000 in. The bank carried $80,000. The property went up $6,000. Did you make 6%? No. You made $6,000 on $20,000. You didn’t make $6,000 in $100,000. What is that percentage? Ladies, I’m going to calculate this for you quickly. You made $6,000 on $20,000 that you invested. That’s 6 divided by 20, you made 30% of your money that year.

That was the most beautiful conclusion and segue into how appreciation works. If the market generally appreciated 6% in that year, your property went from $100,000 to $106,000. That’s $6,000 profit. Remember the formula. Look back at your formula. Rate of return equals profit, $6,000 divided by your equity. I always say use leverage. Some people are debt-averse so I’m not going to convince the Dave Ramsey types for the consumer debt. Get yourself out of it, but there is good debt that produces cashflow. That’s the debt that Moneeka and I are talking about. Use bank money, leverage into as many hard assets as you can that will produce cashflow for you.

That’s money into your account every single month versus money out of your account every single month. There’s a difference between the asset and the liability. The first way that real estate pays you is through appreciation. If you made $6,000 in twelve months and you divide that by your $20,000 down payment, your rate of return, again profit divided by equity, computes to 30% rate of return on your money. Why is that number important? Here’s why. Let’s put things in perspective as we go through the other four ways that real estate pays you.

In order to create wealth, no matter what vehicle you put your money in, it could be cannabis, cacao, agriculture, oil and gas, gold and silver. The thing is you are looking for a rate of return that is higher than the rate of inflation. That is how you get your money to grow faster than inflation can devalue your dollar. Thirty percent rate of return on the appreciation piece of holding a single-family door. Let me do something interesting here. What if we only made 15%? Let’s say we go back to that same property that was $100,000. The capital appreciation over the next twelve months was only 3%.

 

Your house went from $100,000 to $103,000 in value. You would take your $3,000 divided by your $20,000 because your profit is 3%. Your down payment in your equity is $20,000. $3,000 divided by $20,000 comes up to 15%. Are you okay with 15% knowing the inflation? This could be a part that could be challenged or argued. I don’t believe what the government reports to me about the inflationary rate is. It’s on the lower end for their benefit so that they can extend out Social Security payments because it’s based off of the inflationary rate. In my opinion, it’s around 6%.

The best way to notice that is you go in to Whole Foods. How much can you fit in the basket now than you could ten years ago? We can see it in our lives that inflation is not 3%. You can’t fit 3% less. You’re fitting a lot less for the same dollars.

Whatever your rate of return is, it’s got to be 7% or higher or I’m not going to do the deal ever.

We talked about the accountant last time that I advised against. Your accountant is going to say, “You made 6% on your money. You can do that in the stock market that’s a lot more liquid or you can put in a bond or something else.” It’s a lot safer but you didn’t make 6%. This is why you want to take advice from people that understand real estate. You didn’t make 6%, you made 30%. This is also why I don’t buy everything fully with cash because your rate of return is significantly higher if you use leverage, but you want to be safe about it. Don’t leverage 100%. That’s the magic of leverage.

That was such a good point. As long as you, ladies, get the rate of return formula, trust me, by the time we get through the other four ways, it’s going to be etched in your mind just like it was etched into my mind when I studied this. You will then recognize how powerful a vehicle real estate is. You put a little bit of your money into a hard asset and twelve months later it increases in value. What did you do? You didn’t do anything. You just held onto it. It increases in value and it pays you that way. Think about the market increase of 10%, and your $100,000 property went to $110,000. They’ve got $10,000 in profit divided by $20,000. That’s a 50% rate of return on your money in twelve months.

What if you had ten properties and this was happening too. Think big. This is how you become a millionaire or a multimillionaire. It’s through real estate. We’ll summarize appreciation one more time and then we’re going to jump into the second one which is cashflow. Appreciation pays you if you made $6,000 in a year divided by your $20,000, you made a 30% rate of return on your money. Is anyone anywhere reading this blog who’s earning 30% return on their money? If you are, I would love to chat with you because then I want to get into what you know. I want my money working as hard for me too.

In a safe asset. Now, this is the other thing is we are holding a real asset that is not going to disappear because the market changes. It’s still land. It’s still property. It will still be there. Even if we have a bad year, it’s resilient and it will come back. We’re not talking about making 30% because you’re trading options in the same month. You’re doing short-term options. We’re not doing derivatives. We’re not doing flipping or whatever. We’re doing something that’s very safe and secure. It’s a hard asset that has proven over time to appreciate.

Ladies, that is way number one. It’s appreciation. Number two is cashflow. A lot of us investors were always very focused on the dollars that are coming back to us every single month based off of what we invested into that rental property. I’m going to go low ball here. I’ve been doing this for many years. I know that there are some properties that will cashflow $400, $300 or $250 a month. I’m going to go low on the cashflow and say that after all the expenses are paid, the monthly cashflow out of a rental property is $150. We’re going to take $150 and we’re going to multiply that by twelve months and that comes up to $1,800. Ladies, is that profit?

Yes and that’s after all expenses. After maintenance, management company, everything.

At the end of twelve months, you now have $1,800 in cash. That is profit to you. Now you take, what do you do? You plug it into the formula, rate of return equals profit which is $1,800 divided by your equity. What do you have in on the deal? It’s $20,000. That’s your down payment. When you take $1,800 and you divide it by $20,000, you get 9%. That’s only at $150. What if I gave you $250 a month? That’s something to think about. Let’s go back because repetition is what gets things in the mind. You earn 30% rate of return on appreciation in twelve months. Your cashflow produced $1,800 at the end of that twelve months. That produced a 9% rate of return. Thirty percent on appreciation, 9% on cashflow, that’s a 39% rate of return on your money and I still have three more to go. Are you interested in learning how it works?

The five ways you can get paid in real estate are: appreciation, cashflow, loan pay down, depreciation, and hedge against inflation. Share on X

The third way that real estate pays you is through the loan paydown. This is where leverage comes in. I’m glad that Moneeka is here with her mortgage background. She might add more than I know because I don’t have the mortgage background. She could contribute a lot more to this particular point. Let’s say, we buy a $100,000 house. We put 20% down or $20,000. We have a mortgage note for $80,000. At the end of twelve months from the first date of the loan, we don’t have an $80,000 balance anymore. We have a $79,000 balance because your mortgage payment has two parts. It has your principal and your interest. The interest is the only expense that’s paying the banker for lending us the money.

That’s how he or she makes money. Thank you for lending it to us. The principal payment or the principal part of the mortgage payment is putting money into your own account. At the end of twelve months, if your loan balance is from $80,000 to $79,000 that’s $1,000 of profit to you. What do you do? Plug it into the formula. Rate of return equals profit, $1,000, divided by your $20,000. Let’s do the math on that one. That comes out to 4%. Thirty percent from appreciation, 9% from cashflow, 4% for low paydown. Guess what happens every year with your loan? Moneeka, I know you know the answer to that. Are you paying down more each year or are you getting more to principal each year or less?

It’s more. This is why it’s so amazing to get a 30-year loan because in the very first year, the bank is going to take as much money as they can in interest and have less in the paydown. That’s why it’s called amortized. It’s not a thing that we can just calculate in our heads. We need an amortization calculator because they amortize it. The first year, they’re going to have a higher chunk that goes into interest and a lower chunk that goes into principal. As the years go on, that flips. It happens very slowly. It’s like an hourglass where there’s a crossover. At some point, you’re paying much more in principal than you are in interest. If you can get a 30-year loan now, let’s say 3% and 3.75%, you hold that in for a long time and then you get to see that turnaround where you’re paying down your principal much faster later on.

That means your rate of return is getting better year over year. Keep that in mind. Thirty percent on appreciation, 9% on cashflow, 4% on loan paydown. There are a lot of people that buy real estate for the tax advantages. One of them is called depreciation. How do you calculate depreciation? How does it relate to profitability to you? What a lot of people don’t understand is that the US Tax Code is not a penal code. It may feel like it, if you’re not contributing back to the US economy in a big way. Here’s what I mean by that. If you are a risk-taker like business builder or somebody that is employing lots and lots of people, 500 or more let’s say, the US government gives you certain tax breaks. The US government cannot do all things for all people all the time.

They need entrepreneurs, business owners, risk-takers to help them meet the needs of their population. If you grow agriculture locally, you get tax benefits. If you drill for domestic oil and gas, that’s a big risk. That’s a lot of money that you put to drill to try to find oil. If you find it, great. If you don’t find it then you can write that off as a loss on your tax schedule. If you house people and they pay you rent then the US government is going to allow you to depreciate that asset every year for the next 27.5 years. It means you get a tax break for the next 27.5 years on that door and any other door that you own. Don’t ask where they came up with 27.5 years. I have no idea. It so random.

I don’t know why but that’s the rule. How does depreciation put more money in your pocket? Let’s run through the formula. Let’s take that same $100,000 property that we purchased with leverage. Let’s say that you cannot depreciate land. Land does not lose its value. The structure has wear and tear. There are costs that we as investors and landlords have to pay to maintain that property. The US government says, “Thanks for housing our people. You’re going to get to depreciate your asset for the next 27.5 years and here’s how you calculate it.” Take the $100,000 property and you’ve got to subtract out the cost of the land. A good 10% is a good way to calculate that. You take $100,000 property, multiply it by 10%, now you’ve got a structure valued at $90,000.

The land is valued at $10,000. The structure is $90,000. What do you do? You take the $90,000 then you divide it by 27.5 years. If you have calculators, I’m going to do it with you. You take $90,000 divided by 27.5 and that comes up to $3,272. Is that your deduction though? No. Here’s why. The difference between me, you, Moneeka, and everyone else reading is that we all fall into different tax brackets. You have to take that value and then multiply it by your tax bracket. I’m going to say 35% because you guys all make killer money and you’re amazing fabulous women. The $3,272, I’m going to multiply that by tax bracket of 35%. That comes up to $1,145.

That means the US government says, “Moneeka, thank you so much for housing our citizens. I appreciate you giving them housing so you can depreciate your asset every year. This year you get to depreciate $1,145 in that asset which means you get to keep that money. We don’t want it. You keep it.” Is that profit to you because you don’t have to pay the government? Yes. The fourth way that real estate pays you. You can depreciate the asset and keep that money. What do we do when we have profit? We roll it into our rate of return formula. Rate of return equals profits, $1,145 divided by your equity, which is $20,000 and that comes up to 5.7%. I can round it up to 6%.

Let’s stop here and add up the numbers. We earned 30% on our money from appreciation. We earned 9% money from cashflow. We earned 4% from the loan paydown, and now we earned 6% from depreciation. That gives me 49% rate of return on your investment every year. The last way that real estate pays you is not easy for me to show in a calculation. It’s easier for me to explain it as a bigger picture. Have you guys heard of the term, buying real estate is a good hedge against inflation?

What the heck does that mean? Does anyone know what that means? How does it mean in a calculation? A good friend of mine who’s a lender has a calculator that shows this. It’s proprietary. He’s still working on it. It’s not quite complete but he showed me the prototype. I said to him, “Aaron, you have got to give that to me. This is exactly what I need to show in mathematical terms to explain how real estate is a good hedge against inflation.” In short, think of it this way. When we borrow money, we’re locked to a certain payment for the next 30 years.

Ten, five years from now or next year, everything goes up. The cost of living goes up. Your salary goes up if your boss likes you. You get your 1% or 2% raise. That’s what mine was when I was working in the corporate world. You’re earning more money as time goes by. The banker though is not asking us to pay back the loan in inflation-adjusted dollars. They’re asking us to pay the loan back in nominal dollars. They’re not asking you to pay the loan. The value of the loan doesn’t go up. You’re earning more and you’re paying back the loan in nominal dollars that we’re back here locked in time. It was a long time ago. That comes out to around 3%.

 

That will go up over time too. As inflation raises, and you’re locked into a rate from many years back, then that percentage of return for you is going to go up.

If you were to tack on that last 3% with your hedge against inflation, I am now at a 52% rate of return on your money twelve months later after you purchased the asset. This is my opinion. Any rate of return that I can get above 7% is stellar for me. If inflation is at 6% and I’m earning anything above that, then I’m creating wealth. Any investment that earns below that 6%, you’re losing value. You’re not earning. You’re just trying to keep up. That’s what people talk about the rat race like, “I’m flipping in the rat race.” As you get married, you have kids, buy bigger homes, buy X, Y, and Z things, you’ve got more money going out.

You’re locked to a job to be able to pay for all these things and you’re stuck because you’re not having streams of income coming in from other places. You’re relying on that one income to pay for all of those things. This was just one property. What if you took this 52% rate of return on one property and you multiplied it by ten properties? You don’t have to buy all ten now. I talk with investors, it’s building a portfolio slowly over time. If you’re in Moneeka’s neighborhood, your property values, you probably have a lot of equity in your homes. That’s what exactly most of my California investors do. They will take lines of credit on their primary residence because let’s say you’ve got $1 million sitting in equity. That’s very reasonable from where Moneeka lives. You’ve got $1 million in equity in your property. That $1 million is sitting comfortably in your house. It’s not doing anything. Is it earning you any money? It’s not. It’s sitting there. It makes you feel good but it’s earning you $0.

It’s like taking $1 million and putting it in a savings account earning 1%. If inflation is at 6% and your money is earning 1% in a CD through the bank, are you creating wealth with that? No. You’ve got to get it earning. The biggest hurdle for a lot of people is they go, “I don’t want to touch that. It makes me feel better there. I want my house paid off.” I don’t want my house paid off ever. I want to be able to deduct the interest. I want to have a line of credit on my house I have access to anytime that I want to buy investment properties or anything that’s going to produce cashflow for a monthly basis. I’m looking for more streams of income so that you can escape the rat race. Moneeka and I are the same mindsets. This is how we have learned what real estate does for us and our families.

That’s why we’re so passionate about teaching you the five ways of what real estate pays you. Thirty percent appreciation, 9% cashflow, 4% loan paydown, 6% depreciation, 3% on a hedge against inflation, that’s not made up. That is real math. Math is money and money is fun. Learn the math, learn to make them money, and real estate is a phenomenal wealth builder. Through learning the rate of return formula and plugging those little numbers in as you go, then you recognize that you’re accelerating your wealth faster than the average 6% or 8% that the stock market yields without all of the whip stalling and the heart palpitations that you get. As you get older like I am, I don’t like all of those. I’m an aggressive investor. I don’t like all the whips off because I could be losing 30% of my money in an instant.

What if I had ten rental properties and they’re all appreciating 6% a year. That calculates to a 30% rate of return each year, that is a much faster, better secure wealth-building tool than something I don’t have any control over in the stock market. That’s where when you understand the math, ladies, and this is what I wanted to. I’m hoping that Moneeka and I were able to accomplish that goal on this episode. Write that formula down, rate of return equals profit divided by equity. We have a one-pager. We could attach it to this as a nice little summary to send it out to you guys so that you have it. I didn’t talk about you can write-off the interest. That’s not even something that I even talked about. There are many other ways. These are the five basic ways and once you get these five basic ways, there is no doubt in my mind, you will then see the value of investing your money in real estate.

If this sounds good to you, you need to have a deeper conversation with Maureen. She can run you through the numbers for your scenario. What we are going to do is in EXTRA, we’re going to build a portfolio. We’re going to start with we’ve got this much money, I want to build a portfolio and here is my goal. We’re going to do a pretend goal for me and we’re going to do that. She’s going to show me how to build a portfolio. Stay tuned for EXTRA for that. For your personal conversation, call Maureen or email Maureen. What is the email address they can reach you at?

It’s my first, initial and last name, [email protected]. I would love to chat with you. One of the things that I love doing is finding out what it is that investors want. Moneeka, the conversations that I had for years comes down to people who want to take care of their families. They want to live a financially worry-free life. They want to either supplement retirement and retire earlier. They want to pay for college for kids. I have some investors that have disabled children who once they become adults are still going to need care.

The parents know that when they transition off this planet, they want to have enough resources available to their child or children that they’re leaving behind that has special needs so that they’re well taken care of. I have some that invest for tax purposes, to reduce their tax liability, but it comes down to those things. It comes down to wanting to take care of their families and they want a steady stream of income. This is one beautiful way to make it happen. It builds that for whatever their purpose is. It’s cool to get to understand what their goals are.

Ladies, if you do connect with Maureen and I encourage you to do that, please let her know that you came from me so that she knows the conversation that you have been in on already. That’s going to be very relevant. You can ask more questions and get more details and all of that stuff. It helps her to give a little context on what your knowledge base is. Maureen, thank you for that. That was amazing. I can’t wait to build my multimillion-dollar portfolio. That’s going to be fun. We’re going to be doing that in EXTRA.

Ladies, if you are not subscribed to EXTRA, go subscribe. Its RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. The first seven days are free. You’re going to get Maureen’s EXTRA. There are about 50 other EXTRAs up there so you can totally binge, and then you can decide whether you want to subscribe for the future or not. If you already subscribed, stay tuned. We’ve got more yummy and juicy stuff for you. If you’re leaving us now, I appreciate that you joined us for this portion of the show. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.

 

Important Links

• Maureen McCann
• Wall Street Bets Virus Meltdown Gives Landlords a Chance to Grow – article
• Invitation
• [email protected]
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com
• https://spartaninvest.com/investing4women

 

About Maureen McCann