John Casmon

Impacting Communities Through Real Estate with Matthew Perry, Episode 84

Matthew Perry learned about real estate in school and started flipping houses as a college student. What started out as a means to make beer money, turned into a passion for making an impact through real estate. He focuses on projects that have a direct and tangible impact on communities, flipping roughly 50 projects throughout New England and about 100 wholesale transactions. On today’s episode, he shares how he got started without a plan and how he’s refined the process since. In addition, he shares how his work impacts communities and provides an overview of the Boston market.

Key Market Insights

Fascinated by the different pockets of neighborhoods in Atlanta
Conduct an intense 2-3 week market analysis
Review the demographics of the area
Spoke to 20-30 agents about what buyers where seeking
Averaged about 80 projects while in college with partners
Moved into buy and hold by purchasing in Raleigh, Charlotte, Richmond and Baltimore
Were people moving into the city? If so, what part of the city?
Look at the last two years to get a sense of the market
Where are people looking and what do they want?
Make sure your updates are based on what the market wants, not the picture in your head
Look to make an impact on the community, not just a single house
Find a way to renovate multiple houses in one area to earn trust and support of the community
Boston is one of the top 5 most expensive markets for real estate
Cost per square foot runs parallel to NY
Boston is landlocked and you can ride a bike from one end of the city to the other in about 45 minutes
Lots of “bedroom communities” where people live there only to sleep and commute into the city of Boston
Matt’s farm area ranges from Boston to Wooster and Boston to Manchester, New Hampshire
Boston’s growth starts Chelsea, Revere, Hingham, Weymouth
Newer growth taking place in north shore – Gloucester, Ipswich