Maryland Real Estate Investing Tips: Best Buy-and-Hold Areas, Voucher Rentals, and Cash Offer Risks

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (00:00)
That’s true. A lot of times when I may go on a listing appointment, they’ll say, well, why should I list with you when I have this letter in the mail? And they say, they’re ready to find my house today. I don’t have to worry about any open houses and people walking through my home. And I let them know that these people are going to purchase your property or they’re trying to purchase your property for less than what the market value is on it and you’re going to lose money.

Dylan Silver (01:55)
Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Catrina Robinson, a real estate professional with over 25 years of experience. Catrina serves buyers, sellers, renters and investors across Maryland, D.C. and Georgia, while also building her own portfolio as a buy and hold investor. She brings a dual perspective, helping clients navigate deals while personally understanding long term wealth building through real estate ownership. Welcome to the show, Catrina.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (02:23)
Thank you, Dylan. Glad to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:26)
Now, I’d like to start off at the top. What does working with traditional single family buyers differ from, you know, working with investors? We were talking in the green room, right, that working with investors can be tricky.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (02:41)
Yes, working with investors can be challenging. ⁓ Basically because investors are looking for deals. They’re looking to pay under the market value for property, whereas a traditional real estate purchaser is just looking for a place to call home.

Dylan Silver (03:01)
Yeah, and they’re looking for something that’s gonna be their long-term home. Now, we also ⁓ were talking beforehand and you had mentioned you’ve been working with sellers and sometimes they’ll get something in the mail that says, buy my home for cash and they’ll say, what about this offer? And so people do have to watch out sometimes for cash offers because you don’t know if that cash offer can always transact, right?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (03:26)
That’s true. A lot of times when I may go on a listing appointment, they’ll say, well, why should I list with you when I have this letter in the mail? And they say, they’re ready to find my house today. I don’t have to worry about any open houses and people walking through my home. And I let them know that these people are going to purchase your property or they’re trying to purchase your property for less than what the market value is on it and you’re going to lose money.

So I tell them to be real careful with that because sometimes also

It’s not a cut and dry deal like they’re telling you. They’re going to put you in a contract while they list your property and potentially get hundreds of thousands of dollars above what you’re going to get. So you may walk away with 50,000, but they’re walking away with 200,000 when that whole 250 could have been yours.

Dylan Silver (04:12)
Yeah, I wish we could have that and then just explain that exactly to everyone who gets a cash offer, because that’s certainly going to change potentially their perspective if they think this is the highest and best offer. Now, granted, that is a potentially ⁓ an outlet for someone who needs something quickly. But if you’re looking for highest and best listing it on the MLS is probably the best way and has been historically pivoting a bit here. Catrina, you’re licensed in several different markets, Maryland, D.C. and Georgia.

What’s the biggest differences between those markets?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (04:47)
Well, is really not too much of a big difference. The property values in Georgia has really soared over the years. It’s not as what it used to be where you can come down and get, let’s say, a 3,000 square foot home and purchase it for 200,000. Those days are gone.

So ⁓ I would say pretty much they’re neck and neck, just depends on location in Georgia, where you’re looking in the same in DC, DC and Maryland, depending on where you look in its location as far as prices are concerned.

Dylan Silver (05:22)
Now, you’re

a buy and hold investor. If someone’s looking to invest in Maryland today, are there any specific areas that you’re paying attention to?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (06:23)
Again, it just depends on where you want to be. You want to be closer to the city. You might want to be in certain areas and maybe Prince George’s County. You want to be further away from the city. There are other areas like maybe Charles County, Montgomery County. But then there’s some areas in Montgomery County that may be near the DC line as well, closer to like Northwest area, Northwest DC. ⁓

But like I said, it just depends on where you want to purchase. The closer in towards DC, the more money you’re going to pay. Further away, you’ll get more property ⁓ for your money.

Dylan Silver (07:01)
I’m imagining that the sprawl of the cities is increasing constantly and that you’re seeing people who are now commuting potentially from further and further distances. Are some of those towns and smaller cities on the outskirts, far outskirts of Baltimore and of DC, are they now seeing rent increases because people are commuting from further distances to get to Baltimore, to get to DC?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (07:29)
think the rents are increasing overall due to the economy. I don’t think it has anything about tenant location, like where they need to be and why they’re moving out that way. You gotta look at taxes have gone up. You gotta look at the maintenance costs on properties have gone up. So as landlords, we have to account for all that. And so we have to increase our prices, our rents in order to cover ⁓ the expenses, the overhead. ⁓

If you’re looking at condos, condo association, ⁓ the monthly payment on that has definitely increased. So someone has to pay it. So you got to increase your rent so you can cover the condo association. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:10)
Now, when

folks are looking at condos specifically, I think sometimes this is a tricky area to operate in because do I treat it more like, you know, appreciation that I might see with a home or is this going to not appreciate as quickly because people might compare it to an apartment, right? Are condos appreciating at the same rate as homes?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (08:30)
Okay.

location where you want to be. We have, let me see, we have an area in Maryland called the National Harbor where there are several condos down there. have condos mixed in with apartments. So the condo value down there was predicted to be higher than what it is now. Like they also have these town homes that’s at the harbor, the National Harbor.

And you would expect these townhomes, very nice townhomes, you would expect them to be valued at maybe 2 million plus. They were struggling to get to a million for several years. ⁓ Last time I checked, they may have been selling for a little under a million. But if you put those same townhomes in Virginia, they’re definitely be like a million dollars plus. So.

Dylan Silver (09:28)
Yeah, so

it’s all about the location. one of the tricky things I think, especially for folks who are developers and putting up townhomes is, you know, now people have, especially in places like DC and Maryland, you’ve got so many options as well, that if people are paying already top dollar, what feels like top dollar for something, they might kind of just throw their hands up in the air and say, well, I’m paying a lot for this.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (09:30)
with all of our locations.

Dylan Silver (09:55)
Let me pay a lot for some other area that might be closer to where I want to be at or so on and so forth. You also see kind of the opposite effect though happen as well, which is people will just start justifying why they should be paying less for something just depending on their overall needs. I saw this certainly in Texas where I’m licensed where you see people where there’s an abundance. I know this isn’t happening out there, but there’s an abundance of multifamily housing. And so people really could.

pretty much find and pick any place that they want to live in, there’s probably some spot close by, but then they’re also saying, well, if I’m to be paying that much, maybe I go buy a home or if I’m going to be paying that much, maybe I go, you know, get this place in this perfect location that I want to be and pay a couple hundred dollars more. So you do see, you know, some level of, I guess, scope creep with buyers and renters once they start realizing, you know, how much everything costs.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (11:25)
Yes, yes, I do agree. But it also depends on the buyer. You have some people that look at the overall picture and go, if I buy, then I’ll be responsible for the maintenance, right? The upkeep on the property. So they factor in all that cost versus renting and say, okay, well, the landlord is responsible for everything. So I can just rent and not worry about maintenance versus owning my property and then I go, have to worry about all the maintenance.

Dylan Silver (11:40)
Yeah.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (11:55)
⁓ But one thing I would like to mention is that there are quite a few investing companies, banks, mortgage companies, that are either taking over existing property or building new property, new homes, town homes, single-family homes, and renting them out in lot of areas.

Dylan Silver (12:15)
Yeah, that’s the

And I think that’s also happening not just with condos and multifamily properties, but in single-family residential homes. I’ve spoken with developers who are building whole subdivisions to rent. so one of the things that I think people have some degree of skepticism of or want some degree of caution is, are we just becoming a rental economy where people are just going to rent everything?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (12:30)
Yes.

Dylan Silver (12:44)
We were talking in the green room about the price of homes. I’m from Northern New Jersey area where it feels like the average home price is upwards of $900,000. And it certainly wasn’t always that way. But when it’s becoming more challenging for people to get qualified, it feels like and then when it becomes more challenging from an acquisition standpoint to get into these homes, you’re needing a larger down payment and the mortgages are very high. Who’s qualifying for these homes? It becomes trickier and trickier and trickier.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (13:14)
Yes, that is true. That is true.

Dylan Silver (13:17)
Now pivoting a bit here, Catrina, we talk specifically about investing in the DMV. think there’s a lot of times people immediately pinpointing on DC or they might go to their nearest metro, Baltimore, but you mentioned that you’re in the kind of middle of Maryland, right? And so are there any markets close to you that might not be on the map nationally that folks might be looking at as far as investments?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (13:37)
Thank

Let’s see, as far as investments, I know a lot of investors like to go into an area called district heights, capital heights, maybe Temple Hills. You can get ⁓ a lot of fairly priced properties in that area, some of which may require some repairing, have a repair cost to it. So yeah, that would be a good area for investors. We’re talking to capital heights, the district heights. ⁓

think it’s Hillcrest Heights, Temple Hills, those areas like that.

Dylan Silver (14:22)
Bonus question here for you. What makes a rental property perform ⁓ long term in the ⁓ markets that you’re active in? Is it good tenants? Is it a property that is not gonna have ⁓ structural issues or lots of maintenance issues? Is it a mix of things? What makes something succeed long term?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (14:45)
For me, I’m all about affordable housing. So I lease a lot of my properties to the Housing Choice Voucher recipients. So for me, that’s how I sustain my rent ⁓ and just up keeping all my properties.

Dylan Silver (15:02)
Now, when we talk about affordable housing and you mentioned housing choice voucher, I think more and more investors are realizing that just because they’re receiving some type of government aid, either directly or indirectly, that doesn’t mean that they should shy away from that. It means that pay their rents are guaranteed, right? So it’s a win-win proposition.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (16:04)
It is, it is. I would say ⁓ for me during COVID, I didn’t have a problem receiving my rents on time where a lot of the landlords who didn’t rent to voucher recipients, they were chasing their rents. So I would say it was pretty secure.

Dylan Silver (16:21)
And I think that’s probably somewhat against the grain as far as investor thinking, because you would think, well, if I’m renting to people who don’t have the highest income, how am I going to secure my rent? Well, it’s government backed. So you’re going to get it either way. Getting into that space, was there a learning curve? Was it challenging to get started in that realm?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (16:43)
Well, let’s go back to what you said as far as income. The voucher is their income. So that’s what you have to look at. So whatever your rent is per month, you ⁓ average that or you add that up and then you look at the voucher and the voucher is supposed to cover that. Now, there are some recipients out there that will have to pay a portion of their rent. And then there are some that pay a really small amount of the rent ⁓ of that voucher.

Dylan Silver (17:12)
when we talk about these programs, I think that we’re seeing more and more demand from people for actually affordable housing, whether that’s through these types of programs from investors and developers putting up housing, which isn’t going to cost them, you know, half of their income after taxes taken out.

And ⁓ it’s, mean, we were mentioning earlier too, it’s harder than ever even to just rent in some of these places. You’re not just gonna have to have good credit and no evictions, you’re gonna have to have a large income and guarantors. You’re competing now just to be able to rent in some of these areas.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (17:49)
That is true. That is true. It’s getting harder and harder to qualify for decent housing today. It is.

Dylan Silver (17:58)
Yeah, it certainly is.

And I think as you know, people are starting to potentially survey the real estate market as a whole. And I’m talking to you remotely, we were talking before the show, you know, I’m in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, people are going to start to realize, well, hey, should I do I have to be living in this area, my family’s from here, but is it absolutely necessary that I have to be living in this area? Could I be living in a different state too, right? And so people, especially with advances in technology and AI,

they may just start to realize or say, hey, I just can’t afford to live in LA, in Northern New Jersey, in Boston, or wherever it is, not to throw any shade at those areas. I love those places, but it’s just very expensive to live in so many areas of the country.

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (18:43)
Yeah, that’s a lot of people did realize that and a lot of people with remote jobs did up and leave out of certain areas where they would really couldn’t afford to live in. And so they branched out and went further south.

Dylan Silver (18:55)
Yeah, I think we’re seeing more and more of that kind of net migration. We are coming up on time here, Catrina, any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to get in contact with you?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (19:09)
Okay, ⁓ well right now I am looking at a new grant that just came out, Merlin has, and focusing on trying to get me an area ⁓ for multifamily unit to assist with homelessness. ⁓ So that’s my new project. I don’t want to mention too much about it because I’m freshly getting into it and we’re working on developing the grant proposal. So yeah, that’s the next project. ⁓

to get more doors, as you would put it. Try to open more doors for people, low income people.

Dylan Silver (19:48)
If folks

want to reach out to you, what’s the best way for them to get in contact with you?

Catrina Robinson-Kerrison (19:52)
The best way to reach me would be through ⁓ my phone number, which is 240-299-4596 is my phone number. ⁓ And let me see, my website, is srgproperties, I think it’s srgpropertiesinc.homes. I believe that’s right.

Dylan Silver (20:17)
All right.

Catrina, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for joining us.