Dave:
Everyone tells you you got to go out and buy good deals, but no one actually tells you what that means. What is a good deal today? Well, in this episode we’re going to give you the real numbers you should be looking out for. What’s up everyone? It’s Dave, and today I have my on the market co-host, James Dainard here with me alongside BiggerPockets short-term rental expert, Garrett Brown. So today we’re going to dig into some real numbers of what a good return is on a flip on a long-term rental on a short-term rental, and for different types of investors. Garrett, welcome back to the show. Thanks for being here.

Garrett:
Thanks for having me back. I’m excited.

Dave:
Yeah, likewise James. Good having you as well.

James:
I always like coming on to talk deals.

Dave:
Well, we knew this show was perfect for you. We’re talking about specific numbers, different types of returns. So let’s just start there, James, before we talk about baseline for what your expectations of a return are, what metrics do you actually look at for determining what deals you should be doing?

James:
So when I’m investing, I’m pretty simple. I look at cash on cash return. How much cash am I putting into the deal? What is it producing me back on an annual basis and whether it’s a flip, a development, a rental property, that is my biggest concern. If I’m going to take away any cash and park it on a property, I want to know what is going to be my return on an annual basis because that tells me whether to spend it or not.

Dave:
Okay, well that’s pretty simple. I love cash on cash return, and James alluded to this, but if you haven’t heard of this term, it’s basically just a measurement of how efficiently your investments produce cashflow. So you just take the total profit you make from an investment in a given year, you divide that by the amount of money that you put into that deal, and that doesn’t include any financing. It’s actually how many dollars came out of your pocket and you divide that and that’s cash on cash return. And it could be 2%, it could be 20%, it could be 200% and we’ll talk about what numbers to realistically expect here at the end of 2024 in just a minute, but that is how you calculate it. Gary, are you similar in the short term rental space or is there something different you look at?

Garrett:
I definitely take cash on cash return into a big equation when I’m factoring places. But another thing that I look into is just the sheer amount of people that are traveling to a specific area I’m looking in that can help change the cash on cash return that I’m looking at and the appreciation rates that might come with it. But cash on cash return is definitely a big metric in short-term rental, we all want cashflow when we’re doing this.

Dave:
Well, that’s a good point, Garrett, because looking at demand, especially in short-term rentals helps you forecast what your growth might be when you’re looking at cash on cash return. I guess James, you tell me, but I think with a flip it’s a little bit easier almost because you don’t have to forecast what things are going to change a year from now or two years from now. You’re sort of just figuring it out in year. So when you buy something James that’s longer term, maybe it’s let’s just call it an apartment unit or a single family home that you’re going to rent out. Are there other metrics that you factor in to consider what future growth potential is or factor in the time value of money?

James:
Yeah, I mean those things, I call those accelerators, right? If I’m going to make a strategic decision to buy something because there’s economic growth, there could be tax incentives, there could be path to progress indicators. If I’m seeing a lot of economic growth in a local area, if I start seeing Starbucks goes in big box stores, more infrastructure going in certain areas like opportunity zones. When the opportunity zone credit came up, people started really buying in areas, developing that infrastructure’s getting built, which is going to typically attract more people. The more people that come in, you’re going to get more potential for income, rent increases, appreciation, all those things. And so those are the accelerators. So I don’t factor those into my internal numbers though. Those are upsides and something that I do when I’m defining what I want to do for the year in my buy box, I’m a big clarity guy every year I want to make sure I know what I’m trying to accomplish for the year and the locations that will get me to those goals. And if I’m trying to pick up a lot more rentals, like this year, one of my goals for 2025 is to buy more rentals outside of Washington. I want to get in a little bit more landlord friendly states just to balance out my portfolio. Now there’s so many different ways that I could invest in a still cash on cash return with a rental property. I still want to get at least 10% return on my

Dave:
Money in that first year,

James:
Not in the first year because I do a lot of value add construction. So year one’s usually pretty ugly. You’re not getting any type of income out of it, you’re just creating the appreciation and creating the equity. But based on me setting that core standard of I know what I want my return to be is I want it to be a 10% return. The reason I want it to be a 10% return is because I can achieve 25, 30, maybe 50% returns on flipping homes or developing homes. I want to make sure that I can still get a high growth on my cash. The rest of it is upside and it’s about how do I then take that 10% and go what areas do I park it in to get extra appreciation? And that’s where you can start looking at that population growth, what’s going on, what’s going on with the job market.

James:
If I know that the tech’s expanding rapidly in Seattle in certain neighborhoods, I might want to look at that neighborhood and invest there. If I know things are going to get up zoned and there could be a change in density, I might change those returns too. And so based on the location and what I’m trying to accomplish in those locations, I move that cash on cash return number. I think that is really important. No clarity what you’re trying to accomplish and then adjust your returns based on these extra accelerators too. If I think there’s a high acceleration growth, I might go with an 8% return and if I think there’s a low acceleration growth, I might go with a 10 to 12% return.

Dave:
That makes a lot of sense and I do want to get to that in just a minute and talk about what our expectations are because as James said, what return you should be targeting is really dependent on what upside there is and also what risks there are for a given area. Before we move on though, I want to just say that maybe I am nerdy here, but the metric I personally like to look at is something called IRR or internal rate of return, and it’s kind of difficult to explain and it’s a little bit difficult to calculate. I’ve written about it in my book, it’s like half the book, that’s why it’s complicated to explain it. But the reason I like IRR and why I recommend people spend some time learning about it is because it measures the return that you get on a lot of different variables.

Dave:
So cash on cash return is great, it helps you measure cash, it doesn’t necessarily help you measure appreciation in year. And as investors, it’s super important not just to see how much money you’re making on a deal, but also to generate that return quickly, right? Because if you know anything about the time value of money, the faster you earn your return, the more it’s worth. Just as a simple example, if someone asked you if wanted a hundred bucks today or a hundred bucks in two years, you would say, I want a hundred bucks today because I can invest that money and turn it into hopefully 120 bucks by two years. And so IRR is a really great metric that helps you sort of understand the whole picture, your appreciation over time, your cashflow over time, and the talent value of your money into one number. I’m not going to call it a simple number, but it is into one number and I just wanted to explain that before we get into the rest of the episode, I will probably refer to IRRA couple times here. So let’s jump into some of these questions about what a good deal looks like today. So Garrett, let’s start with short-term rentals. Do you have a sense, Garrett of what other investors are getting in terms of their deals and what would be a good deal in today’s market?

Garrett:
I think in today’s market, I think the average short-term rental investor probably is going to be closer into that 10 to 15% bucket, especially depending on what type of property you’re getting, what market you’re going into. There’s so many different factors because even myself, even these markets I’m talking about that I’m getting 25% in and things like that, the appreciation in a lot of these markets is not as high as some of the markets that are going to have a much less cash on cash return, but those markets probably are better markets for a lot of people that are investing in these type of rentals. I’m a short-term rental investor full time, so I had a lot of free time to develop these types of stays and plots and things like that, but not everybody can do that, and I understand that. So if you’re going into a different type of market and even if you have property management and you can get a 10% to 12% return and you have a property manager pretty much doing most of the work for you, that’s going to be a really good deal in a short-term rental area.

Garrett:
Now, especially if you’re in a better market that’s rising, but I would always look for at least 15% in the short-term rental area just to kind of mitigate the amount of extra effort you have to put into and some of the risks that come involved with it too.

Dave:
I think this is a really important point that return and the number that you should be looking for is relative to your specific situation. And Garrett just mentioned some important ones like for example, how much time you’re going to put into something. If you are super handy and you have a lot of time on your hand, the target return for you should be a lot higher because you should go get into that property and go fix some stuff yourself. If you’re more like me who’s relatively passive, I typically probably target lower returns than James or Garrett because I’m looking for deals that are really low headache and don’t require a lot of my time. And so as we talk about this throughout the episode, just keep that in mind that it’s a spectrum. There’s a risk and reward work on a spectrum. Deals that are really pretty safe and are going to reliably deliver you a pretty decent return and have relatively low risk are not going to have the best returns.

Dave:
That’s just not how it works. The highest returns are there for people who are willing to take on that risk, people who are willing to put that additional effort into it. And so you just have to figure out for yourself basically where you fall on that continuum and what’s important to you. It’s time for a quick ad break, but first, just a quick note, if you’re enjoying this conversation, you may want to pick up James’s new book, the House Flipping Framework. James has flipped more than 3,500 properties and the book is his comprehensive guide to extracting value and maximizing profits with that strategy. You could order it at biggerpockets.com/house flipping YT, that’s the letters YT, and that’s it. We’ll be right back. Thanks for sticking with us. Here’s more of my conversation with Garrett and James. So James, I think I know you well enough to know where you fall on that spectrum, but tell us a little bit how you think about this risk reward spectrum in deals that you’re buying.

James:
And I think this is a very important topic always right? Depending on what’s going on with the market, what were going on with the forecast, the higher the return, the higher the risk. Now I’m a very high risk person. I have aggressive goals, a target to get to those goals in five years. And so for me, if I want to hit those goals, I got to be higher risk, which is like what Garrett’s saying, I got to do asset classes that are more work. Garrett’s hitting a 25% return. You hear this all the time on forums, they’re like, no, everyone’s lying. You can’t hit those returns. They’re selling a dream. You can’t hit those returns, but the more work you put in, the higher the return’s going to be. Garrett’s talking about doing a massive renovation project so he can do a burr to where he can buy it, discounted rehab, it, refinance out most of his cash. That gives him a higher return at that point. Then he has to manage a short-term rental operation business. That is substantially more work than long-term rental. I don’t even do short-term rental because I have so much construction going on. I don’t have time to do both those, right? It’s like I need to focus on one thing or the other.

Dave:
We’ve finally found something that’s too much time for James flipping, buying short to rentals, being on a TV show, being on two podcasts, that’s all fine though.

James:
Yeah, there’s just a little bit too much, but now I’m here 25% returns. I’m like,

Dave:
Now you’re going to go buy a geodome. Let’s talk whenever you’re ready.

James:
Let’s talk let’s the good deals on those. And I’m always like, what do you do with this? But I chase higher returns. I’m trying to get there quickly, but they come with a lot of risk. Like on flipping, I go for on each individual deal, a 35% cash on cash return in six months,

James:
And that includes levering that project usually about 85%. And so that means I’m going to get financing on 85% of the total project purchase price and rehab after I put out my down payment, all of my cash out of pocket on that deal to service that deal. I’m trying to make a 35% return. So if I’m putting a hundred grand in, I want to make 35 grand in six months on an annual basis, that’s going to get me to about a 60 to 70% annualized return. That’s a very explosive return, but that also comes with some explosive risk. Timing is everything right? As a flipper right now, it’s slow. You got to wait longer. It’s going to slow down your returns, you have more expenses. And the reason it’s so rewarding is because it can go the other way very quickly too. Let’s say I’m flipping a house for a million dollars in the Seattle market and the property comes down 5%. That’s not even that dramatic, but 5% that can turn into 50 grand really fast, and I might only be targeting to make 50 grand on that deal or a hundred grand on that deal. And so as the market goes up and down, you can catch those swings. And so for me, I’m willing to get there. I want to grow quickly, but the higher the return and the higher the risk, and that’s where you really have to focus what Garrett said on your business, your operations. How do you reduce risk? You create the right business.

Dave:
I love the specificity of these numbers. So you target a 35% return in six months. If you annualize that, that’s a 70% return, which is just insane. That’s an incredible return. If you think about what’s available in the stock market, it’s like eight 9% is the average of the s and p 500, so you’re talking about eight times that amount. So that will grow your wealth very, very quickly. So that’s super impressive, but as James noted that there’s a lot of risk there as well, but that’s why I just want to make sure that we underscore this main component here. Correct me if I’m wrong, James, but the reason James wouldn’t do a deal for 15% on flipping in six months, even though that’s a great return, if you zoom out and say, Hey, you’re making 30% on your money that year. Normally people would say yes, but when you talk about that 30% return that James is generating, you have to risk adjust it and understand that even though James is amazing at what he does, sometimes you’re going to take a loss. And so you have to only target those really juicy gains because you have to give yourself enough cushion so that, like he said, if the housing market fluctuates or you have some cost overruns or something happens that you don’t understand that there’s still enough in there that you’re hopefully not losing money. And even if you do lose money, you’re only losing a little bit of money instead of having sort of disastrous return.

James:
You got to pad those deals for sure. I mean, the risk can swing so quickly when you’re flipping homes. It’s not a question of if you’ll lose money, it’s when you’ll lose money. It will happen.

Garrett:
Yeah,

James:
You have to build that in, and that is not for everybody. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of long nights, a lot of random events that you have to deal with fires that are going off in all different types of areas, and it’s not worth it to a lot of people. It’s not for every investor either,

Dave:
Dude, absolutely not. No way. I don’t want to do any of that. I mean, actually I have become more interested in flipping over the years just because I spend all day talking to people about real estate, and it sounds kind of interesting, but for the first 12 years of my investing career, I had absolutely no desire to flip houses just because I work full time, I have other stuff to do. So I’ll talk a little bit about my own targets because as the one person here who, well, Garrett, you work at BiggerPockets as well, but you have professional experience in real estate, whereas I have always been sort of a part-time investor. I’ll share my But James, I just wanted to quickly ask you for a long-term rental, I know you buy that. What kind of cash on cash return are you targeting there?

James:
So depending on the location. So if I’m in a better neighborhood, like let’s say an A class neighborhood right next to path to progress Seattle, we usually are targeting about an 8% cash on cash return, but we also want to have a minimum of 10% equity position in that property where we’re creating 10% equity. So there’s a blend. I’m not just looking at the cash on cash return. Now if I’m in a neighborhood that has less accelerators that might be more steady growth, I still target that 10% cash on cash return, and typically I want a 15% equity position on those neighborhoods because usually I can buy ’em a little bit cheaper because it’s less competitive. And so I do a blend when I’m looking at my long-term rentals, what is my cash on cash and then how much equity am I creating by doing my rehab plans?

Dave:
That is a really good metric for people who are going to be active in their long-term rental. So again, want to just make sure everyone understands that James is not just going and buying these deals off the MLS and that they’re stabilized assets and they’re going to be producing this type of 10% cash on cash return. Rather, what he’s doing is going and buying properties that need to be renovated. He’s doing the hard work, he’s getting permits, he’s doing construction, he’s doing the lease up, he’s stabilizing them, and then they’re producing these really nice returns that he’s been talking about. So I do now, now that we’ve just talked about this, I want to give voice to the more passive investor. I guess I am not like a passive investor, but I guess I would say someone who’s not going to do a lot of construction and be on site a lot of the time, and when people ask me for this type of situation what a good deal is, I have almost comically stupid and simple answer here.

Dave:
Tell me if you think I’m crazy, but to me, a good deal is just better than anything else I would do with my money. That’s the frame of reference that I use for every decision I make about real estate. People are like, is a 10% return good? I’m like, well, are you just going to put it in a savings account? If you don’t invest in real estate, then yeah, the 10% return is really good. Or are you going to, is a 10% cash on cash return good if you could go out and find the 20% cash on cash return deal? Garrett was just talking about, no, it’s not. So I think it’s really important to sort of learn these benchmarks, but then also be realistic with yourself about what you’re going to do with the money. And if your answer is I’m going to just do nothing with it, then almost any real estate deal is probably going to be better than just leaving your money.

Dave:
But with that said, I’ll say that for long-term rentals that I buy, I target a 12% IRR. And that is again, a combination of both cashflow and appreciation over time. And these are for relatively low risk deals where they are not going to take me a lot of time. And the reason I target a 12% IRR is that again, I look at my whole portfolio. I don’t just invest in real estate and I can put my money in reasonably low risk over the long term, expect eight to 9% compounding returns in the stock market that requires no work. And so for me to buy something in real estate, it needs to be better than that. And because a 12% return is significantly better than eight or 9%, I’m willing to take on the work and the risk and the stupid paperwork we have to do as real estate investors to justify that better return. And a lot of people are out there saying like, oh, the difference between eight or 9% and 12% is not that big. I completely disagree. If you actually do the math on this, if you invest a hundred thousand dollars over 30 years, the difference between an 8% return and a 12% return, do you guys have any guesses how big a difference? It will be

Garrett:
A hundred thousand.

Dave:
It’s $1.2 million.

Garrett:
Oh yeah,

Dave:
It’s 1.2 million.

James:
Wait, say that number again?

Dave:
1.2 million. If you invest a hundred grand and you invest in the stock market for 30 years, or you buy a real estate property that gives you a 12% IRR for 30 years, the difference in that investment end of 30 years will be $1.2 million. So to me, that is well worth the extra work of being a real estate investor because if you do that a couple times over the course of your investing career, you’re going to make a lot more money. So it’s not as sexy as what James and Garrett are talking about, but to me, just those types of returns are worthwhile. If I’m investing in passively, in syndications, for example, where there’s a heavier value add or there’s just more risk and not as an established area, I look for 15 to 20% for IRR, which is basically I think, I don’t know, James, you probably know this. Well, that’s sort of the standard I think for syndication operators to try and get their LPs 14 to 20% ish.

James:
Yeah, I think that’s the benchmark. Yeah, 15 to 17 is kind of like the sweet spot people plan, and that’s kind of that threshold, which is a great IRR

Dave:
Totally.

James:
One thing that I always like to build into that risk too, when I’m looking at that for IRRs, is the operator and their experience, who they are, what they’re capable of, what they can do. And then based on that, I’m going to adjust my IRR numbers expectations around as well.

Dave:
Yeah, I have the exact opposite of what you would expect whenever as an lp, whatever. You get a deck from someone who’s not an experienced operator, their IRR returns are like 20 or 25% and I’m like, yeah, no way. And then I don’t know what they deliver because they don’t invest with them. But then you go to an experienced person and they say they’re going to get you 14% and then they get you 20%. It’s just like a different mentality of how they operate. Okay, we have to take a break for some ads, but on the other side, James, Garrett and I will be back with more about the returns we look for when analyzing deals. Thanks for sticking with us. Let’s jump back into bigger news. So Gary, I wanted to ask you one more question here about your portfolio because you are investing and reinvesting into a single property very often, so how do you make that decision and how do you think about the math between buying a new deal, a potential new deal, versus just taking the money that you’re generating and reinvesting into an existing property?

Garrett:
So that’s been something I’ve been going back and forth with, especially between me and my partner and things trying to figure out do we want to keep expanding out further and taking our operation more? But every time we crunch numbers, especially with the deals that are out there right now and just there’s just not a lot. So everything is kind of slow right now, even on all sides of my agent side and everything, we decided that looking into if we invest back onto our property, not only are we building the equity in there to make our long-term exit even more attainable for what we’re trying to hit, but short-term rental insurances, especially in Texas, is through the roof. If we consolidate all of these properties onto one property, our insurance rates have been much lower because we have a liability policy as well that has to be covered.

Garrett:
And if it’s on one property, the same company, the rates that have gone up through there are not as much as going to buy another property. Another reason is our taxes and Texas has really high property taxes. I go buy another property, my tax bill is going up. If I build on the property I already have, hopefully my county’s not watching. So if they are, I may not even say this, but they don’t come out there and assess our properties a whole lot and know exactly how much we’re putting in infrastructure wise onto these properties. And so our tax bill has not just shot through the roof compared to what our actual value may be from all the things we’ve built on the property. And then at the same time too, self-manage a lot of my own properties, which is why I can hit these cash on cash returns with all the tools that are out there now.

Garrett:
It’s so easy to automate processes and things like that, but I already have my infrastructure built out there. I have a handyman, I have all my team everything out there. I have a cleaning team of three to four people. It makes my life now that I’m working constantly trying to find other deals, I need this to go even smoother. And I’ve already built out the whole operation there. Short-term rental is a big operation thing, and we are dominating that market and operations and in our marketing in the Houston Austin kind of area. So we just haven’t found a real reason to not invest back into our property. And every time we’ve done it, it’s paid off in dividends. Even not long ago, for example, we put a sauna. It was only $3,000 to get this sauna, and people thought I was crazy to put a sauna at one of our properties in Houston, Texas. They were like, why would you do that? You walk out into Asana just walking into the air there

Dave:
Free, just walk outside.

Garrett:
And I made that joke too. I didn’t believe it, but I had somebody that’s much smarter than me that’s in this type of business from Europe. Tell me. They were like, Hey, you may not think Asana is a good idea, but if you’re the only person with a sauna within three, 400 miles, you’re going to stand out. And I paid $3,000. And it’s hard to judge how much does that amenity actually bring you back. But I could just tell from the amount of inquiries and bookings we were getting and from the people just saying, Hey, we love the sauna we booked because of the sauna and the social media marketing that came out of it, that $3,000 investment, me putting it into that property, I’m sure we have doubled that in a few months from just what we put into it and the amount of social media clips that have went out because of this sauna that we put in.

Dave:
Yeah, I mean if I was getting those kinds of numbers, I would do the exact same thing. I think you have convinced me to add a sauna to my short-term rental. I think that’s a great idea. Absolutely. James, what about you? You do a little bit of everything, and I know you’re always trying to optimize your portfolio and use your money efficiently. How do you think about in today’s market, if you can’t find a deal that you like, are you going to take that money and reinvest it into some of your existing properties?

James:
And I think that’s always something that’s really important you do as an investors is to audit as investors, what’s our inventory? Well, inventories are assets, but it’s also our cash. What is our cash? That is what I inventory. I’m like, how much cash do I have? Where can I put it? And I treat my real estate investing almost like a financial planner where I have a pie chart.

James:
I go, okay, I have this much cash to invest. There’s a couple different asset classes I invest in. One’s long-term holds, like can I buy a rental property that’s going to hit my minimum returns and create my minimum equity position expectations? Then there’s flipping higher risk. I’m going for a higher return, 35% in six months, 70% annually. Then I do private money financing where I will lend out hard money and make 12%, 14% on my money. And it’s very, very passive for me at that point. So each asset class has a different return for me and a different purpose, and they also have a much different risk. And so for me as an investor, my job every year is to audit, okay, well how much time do I have to spend on these business? Where’s the risk? What’s my path to growth for my goals and where do I want to put this cash?

James:
But it also comes down to deal flow. If I can’t find deal flow, how do I reallocate that? And so that’s why I think it’s just really important to always know that because flipping is really tight on the margins right now, and if I cannot hit my 35% return and my option is to either lower my return so I can get into the market and start playing, and maybe that goes down to a 25% cash on cash return, that’s starting to be more risky than maybe I want to take on. And then that’s where I’ll lend my money out at 14% because it’s a lot less risky. So I can make half the return, but probably take one fifth the risk. Because the thing that I never want to fall into is there’s no deals in the market I can’t transact. There’s always a transaction and I just have to go, how do I want to work that transaction? Whether I want to be passive or active is going to tell me how high that return is, but it’s also going to tell me what I need to do for the next 12 months.

Dave:
Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. It sort of underscores this idea that I talk about a lot of benchmarking for people. People are always like, oh, there’s no deals or I can’t find a good deal. I don’t know where to put my money. I always ask, how many deals have you analyzed in last couple weeks? Right? Because it’s really easy to say, Hey, there’s no deals if you’re just sort of reading the media or just kind of eyeball testing things. But I really encourage you, everyone listening to this, whether you’re ready to buy a deal right now or not, go actually do this. Go run five deals in your neighborhood right now and just figure out what the average return is for whatever strategy. If you are flipping, if you’re doing a long-term rental, if you’re doing a short-term rental, just go see what a good deal is because that will make your portfolio management decisions, your cash allocation decisions so much easier.

Dave:
Like James just said, if you see that you’re only getting 10% in flips in your neighborhood and that’s not acceptable to you, you got to go figure something else out. But maybe you’ll find that you’re getting 25% and that there’s actually a simple deal right in front of your face. So actually go and run the numbers every month at least to figure out how deals are trending in your neighborhood. And it’s going to make it so much easier for you to figure out where to put your money because you’ll actually be comparing one or two things against each other rather than just this hypothetical thing where you’re like, oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if I should invest right now. It’s not a good deal. Well, what else are you going to do with your money? What other opportunities have you looked at? Once you’re comparing two actual tangible investments against one another, things get a lot easier to decide.

Dave:
Alright, well that’s what we got for you guys today, Garrett and James, thank you so much for sharing with us what you think good deals are today and your process for figuring out how you’re going to allocate money. Because at the end of the day, as investors, that’s our job is to figure out how to take our money and use it more efficiently, give it our own personal preferences, our risk and reward appetite, our time allocation, all of that. And this has been a great conversation about how to do just that. So Garrett, thanks for joining us.

James:
Thank you for having me,

Dave:
James. It’s a pleasure as always.

James:
I love talking deals.

Dave:
Alright, well we’ll have you both back on very soon to let you know what deals you do between now and in a couple of months. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. We’ll see you soon.