Millennials are Buying Real Estate, Just Not Locally

Millennials may be priced out of actually owning the residence they live in but that doesn’t mean they’re not buying real estate. Some are purchasing and managing houses in places they’ve never been to and it’s all happening online.

Curbed.com writes about Michael Pickens, a tech worker who can’t touch the million dollar price tags for local Bay Area condos, but he owns six properties in multiple cities thanks to Roofstock. The online platform enables users to buy and sell investment properties in midsize, emerging markets across the United States. Picken can buy buildings from Pittsburgh to Memphis, Tenn., via his laptop.

“It’s very video game-like, like buying stock. I’m physically buying these buildings, and managing property from afar.”

Roofstock, which has overseen more than $1.6 billion in transactions since it was founded in 2015, allows Pickens and other users to choose rental properties with varying degrees of expected returns, based on numerous risk factors, including location and tenant history. (Each listing contains extensive photos and inspection records.) Pickens picked up his first buy, a duplex in Memphis worth $129,000, a year ago, putting 20 percent down. After taxes, management fees—a property manager recommended by Roofstock oversees the building—and the mortgage payment, he makes roughly $200 a month. He’s already picked up five buildings in five other markets and spends less than an hour a week operating his property empire. It’s so easy he compares the process to fantasy football; Roofstock’s 30-day property return policy makes it “like buying a pair of shoes.”

“I’ve never been to the places where our investments are,” Pickens says. “I know nothing about these towns or cities.”

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