What is this fascination with the "core"......

"FEAR is back! And it is ruling the investment world. The
choices of where to invest money safely are very few. Hence,
gold, treasuries, and core real estate have become the safe
investment vehicles of choice – besides putting it under the
mattress, that is – rather than back into the bank. If you
think back to just 2009 though, this is the exact moment
when those brave investors who purchased properties made
a pile of money in less than 2 years. Again citing Mr. Buffet,
the time to buy is when everyone is running scared."

So says Fred Cordova in his New Nexus blog.  Full and fun post
is here.  I agree with much of what he says, but coming from small
town Ohio, where many profitable real estate investments have
been (and will be) made, I just don't understand the focus only on
"core real estate."  "Core", as I understand it, is the industry code
for the trophy properties in the major (NYC, Washington, L.A.,
Chicago, et. al.) markets.  Almost any trade publication you
care to read has a story about "core real estate."  Most of those
stories lately talk about the competition for those properties as
big time investors seek "safety."   As with most competitions for
a scarce resource, the result has been "compression" of cap rates,
which is industry code for sale prices rising in relation to the net
income the investment property will generate.  I understand that
if you have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to invest,
coming to small town Ohio just doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's
just a matter of scale.  But the real estate investment market is
way bigger than just what is happening in New York or L.A or
Washington.  Plus, overpaying for core properties just because
they are "core" and all your investing peers are in love with them,
seems like a good way to take a large fortune and turn it into a
small one.

I would suggest that there are many opportunities for profitable
real estate investing in the non-core world.  We may not be very
sexy and there certainly aren't any "trophies" around here, but if
a fair and reasonable rate of return for a modest amount of risk
is your cup of tea, check us out.  Opportunities abound in small
town Ohio.