An Interview with Bruce Norris
Small business and real estate are one in the same; good project management. This week I spoke with a real estate colleague, Bruce Norris of the Norris Group, a California real estate investment group. The Norris group has flipped over 4,000 homes and they do hard money loans where they loan money out to flippers and most importantly, Bruce and his group make communities better.
People perceive flippers as takers, they think people who flip will take from their tenants or the community in some way and that's not the type of real estate business in which Bruce and I are involved. Bruce said in the first year of his business he sat across from someone to negotiate the purchase of their home and the man across from him, he could tell, was depressed and from that incident on, that really affected what Bruce said to people and how he interacted with people in future business. He said instead of talking to the man about his house he offered him an Og Mandino book and the man gratefully explained to him the following day that the book saved his life. Bruce and I agree that there is more than enough to go around and the passion comes with working with people and teaching people, not taking from people.
Once a year The Norris Group (TNG) runs a Bootcamp, this year's camp will be on New Construction. TNG tries to do camps on whatever the best thing for the marketplace is right now. There's a point as a flipper where you can't have enough margin on a home to support your business, so learning how to add square footage helps people learn how to increase their income.
Bruce recently did his financial updates and he says this is a complicated time right now for those who are into the economic forecasting. For me, I know that in the last cycle I was actively involved in converting properties and I got my backside handed to me during the downturn. I know many people don't understand the large economic market real estate exists in. Bruce however understands the market and says every time he writes a report he believes there's so much even he doesn't understand (for example the effect China will have on real estate). Bruce says for some people, when you're in the middle of 2005, 2006, or even 1989 everything you touch rewards you in real estate and so you think you're good at it and then 6 months later you're blindsided and something changes. To be able to see the downturn coming in a market is life-saving and that's the goal of Bruce's report, to help people see what is on the horizon.
Right now we're in quadrant four, which means that you're moving upwards in prices and it goes through an early phase and gains momentum. So areas like San Francisco and San Jose that raced through quadrant four, exploding in price at an ever greater amount, and now they're priced over the 2007 number. You have other areas like San Bernardino and Riverside that are way behind the last peak so it's not been an even sum gain; areas with great job bases like the tech jobs in San Francisco versus places that are more construction based do better.
Bruce says that quadrant four statewide (for California) is not in any danger of a downturn in the next year. Two elements are missing that will cause this downturn to be more mild; 1- there isn't a large amount of single-family homes that were constructed that could be for sale when the market turns. Number 2 is the lending world has been tough on people getting in, almost everyone has a fixed rate loan and almost everyone put down money and didn't refinance their equity. This creates the safest pocket Bruce says he's ever seen as you approach quadrant four. There will be a rise in foreclosures, but it won't be aggressive like we've seen in the past.
Bruce spends months preparing his 20+ chapters of reports and he works hard to not let what he thinks he knows, influence what he's seeing in the industry.
To participate in The Norris Group or to learn more from Bruce check out thenorrisgroup.com and listen to his radio show, read hard money loan information and much more. You can also contact The Norris Group at 951.780.5856.