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Thursday, May 23, 2013

SE Seattle Investment Tour - Reviews

11:54 AM
And here are the final batch of comments from attendees on last week's bus tour of SE Seattle:



”It was a very interesting tour today, thank you for organizing it! I got to see some areas that I had not seen before. I would love to talk to the fund manager about what kinds of loans they can do, terms, and conditions. As the city official hinted, they are interested in 100+ units projects, which is beyond my level. It also sounded that 10-20 unit buildings are sort of already taken. It would be great if they could talk about a few projects, describing the goals of the project and how they assisted, to put things in perspective.

--Alexei Kudriavtsev, REAPS investor



“What a great contribution to the REAPS community and a real value add experience.  Congratulations on successfully pulling it off.  Here is my feedback:
 Went well:
·        Good, knowledgeable, local speakers
·        Active and interested participants
·        Good overview of neighborhoods (though they avoided some of the seedier areas)
·        Discussed retail, multi-family, industrial, and office (i.e., not just primarily one asset class); I really appreciated this part since I have been on other tours that are lopsided in only one asset class
 Considerations for improvement next time:
·        More set up for interactive Q&A, perhaps with all/most of the speakers at the end back at the main office for a wrap-up open discussion before everyone disperses
·        Although there was some discussion of rental rates and an occasional on-the-market price point thrown out, the main thing I still want and didn’t get was a sense of ROI / cap rates in the area.  It would have been helpful to address that directly, and also for the tour to point out some recent actual completed sales along the way to show what an investor can get for how much and what the estimated return would be.
I would recommend doing this again, and I would recommend it to others.  In fact, it would be interesting to know what other areas would support the same model and have tours in other towns.  This area was incentivized to hold it because they want the external influx of investment and improvement, but other areas may be similarly motivated or look at it as a local business generation opportunity as well.  At minimum, I’d bet that a local knowledgeable commercial broker could round up some interesting speakers and have a captive audience of investors for a few hours, all co-coordinated courtesy of REAPS. 
--
Scott Price, REAPS volunteer, Active Commercial Investor


“We had a 'full house' in the 'Chamber', as well as, 'standing room only' on our bus. We met at the Rainier Valley Chamber of Commerce. Our own REAPS volunteer, Wendy, set the tone for a very nice opportunity. We heard from past, present and future Chamber Presidents. Each helped us to become better acquainted with REI opportunities in their local market. For me, this highlighted the role and value of our local Chamber, as an 'ally' to Investors. There were additional notable local contributors that joined our Bus Tour, at two or three stops, of several minutes each. Over all, I rate my experience as having a wonderful contribution to 'rounding out' my experience as an investor. As a point of illustration, I am going to contact my local Chambers, in Pierce County, including Tacoma, to replicate a South Sound version of today's experience. “

--Sharon Zevenberger, REAPS volunteer


“Excellently arranged, very well synchronized and coordinated. Both the information and the networking was wonderful.  I hope we do more of these informational type tours…it is good, just to get to know the city and the municipal connections.  Very well done.

--Steve Olds, REAPS investor

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