Christian Osgood warns that ultra-cheap single-family homes priced around $35,000 are like penny stocks: inexpensive because nobody wants them. They lack economies of scale and generate too little cash flow to justify building efficient systems. Multifamily properties offer better operational leverage.
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When you're buying single-family, I think people can wrap their head around the concept of, oh, there's these crappy little homes in the middle of nowhere you can still pick up for $35,000 and you can buy a whole bunch of these and maybe make a little bit of cash flow. People can wrap their head around $35,000, a smaller investment. I can dip my toe into the pools of being a landlord. Here's what ends up happening. Because you have no efficiencies, it actually takes more time to manage that tenant. All the problems that you hear about in real estate, it happens to the small investors because it doesn't make enough money to build any systems around. You just have this little cheap house in the middle of nowhere. Cheap assets are like penny stocks. They're cheap for a reason, because they suck and no one else wants them. If there was more demand, they would be more expensive.