The Most Undervalued Markets You Should Be Investing In Now with Stefan Tsvetkov

Today's Guest: Stefan Tsvetkov

Stefan is a financial engineer turned multifamily investor, analytics speaker, live webinar host, and the founder of RealtyQuant - a company that brings data-driven and quantitative techniques to the real estate industry. They utilize a data-driven approach to seek inefficiencies in the U.S. multifamily market. RealtyQuant Analytics uses a collection of state-level and county-level reports and data to assist investors in best gauging overvalued real estate markets and their appreciation potential. They have also developed statistical predictors for market appreciation and a valuation metric to gauge market downside risk. With RealtyQuant, Stefan is on a mission to add industry value through education, investment, technology, and analytics.

Highlights From The Show:

We begin the episode with Stefan sharing his background story and how he ended up in real estate. Stefan shares that he’s from Europe. He came to the States at 22 years old to pursue his master's in financial engineering in New York City and worked in finance for about a decade. Stefan shares that for the last couple of years, he has been investing in commercial real estate in the Midwest. Stefan is also the founder of RealtyQuant, a data analytic industry in real estate, where he does different property and market analytics. He has done studies on prior market recessions and published market evaluation metrics for every single county in the country.

We then discuss what is happening and Stefan's outlook on what will come in the next 18-24 months. He shares that the most distinctive thing he has seen that shows we’re not yet in a recession is that inflation is high, and it goes heavily down in recessions. The second distinctive factor he shares is that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) metrics that show whether we are in a recession or not are very subjective to factors such as personal expenditure. According to Stefan, what he is interested in as a marketer and investor is the market he’s investing in and understanding if he will be able to carry down the risk if it hits a recession at some point. They do studies in these areas, and they have appreciation predictors which account for population growth, income growth, and so forth to show the kind of appreciation to expect in different markets. According to Stefan, understanding market relations is key. It’s not about having a doomsday perspective if you have negative exposure in a recession but more about what will be your relative performance.

Next, we talk about how the politics of a state can affect the over and undervaluation of properties in real estate. Stefan shares that politics have an effect on the population, demographics, and migration shifts. Stefan also explains that being protected in a recession is not about investing in strong markets which decline at a higher rate. For instance, during the previous recession, very desired markets like California, Arizona, and Florida declined, while undesired markets like West Virginia and Mississippi had no decline in the real estate crisis. Stefan shares that strong markets are generally riskier when it comes to property depreciation during recessions because they tend to become overheated.

Lastly, we talk about how states and regions are overvalued, and those that should look out for that are undervalued right now. Stefan shares that the undervalued regions tend to decline very little. Normally the drop is 10 to 12%, but in the undervalued states, the average decline was only 4%. For instance, if you had a property in North Dakota, it had 0% depreciation because it was very undervalued at the time. According to him, with evaluation, you can invest at any time in a very educated way, and the best top ten states, which are also the best markets, are the western and southern states. In terms of undervalued, he recommends you look for poorly performing states like Illinois, North Dakota, Louisiana, and Connecticut.

Make sure you don’t miss another amazing episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with Stefan Tsvetkov and get valuable information on the most undervalued markets you should be investing in now!

Notable Quotes:

“We’re not yet in a recession, inflation is high, and it goes down heavily in recessions.”

Stefan Tsvetkov

“Strong markets are generally riskier when it comes to property depreciation during recessions because they tend to become overheated.”

Stefan Tsvetkov

“Having comprehensive data is important when things are moving; you need to know what is happening and look ahead, but you can’t just look a year behind you to know what will happen a year ahead of you.”