If you opened for the deals, both on or off-market, keep scrolling down!

Let’s get the elephant in the room through: Is conflict in the Middle East having an affect here at home? In short, no. Zilch. Nada.

Mortgage rates indeed slightly jumped at the prospect of future inflation due to strangleholds in oil supply due to Iran conflict, but have nudged down to the upper 5’s on average. Rates are remaining low, relatively speaking. The good news? Typically in turbulent times investors flock to bonds for safety, which in terms helps mortgage spreads (baring inflationary concerns).

The Lesson → People make decisions in RE based on what affects their day-to-day, and currently the Iran conflict has not proved to affect that.

The great news is that housing inventory is truthfully at the best spot we have seen it in years. We 4X’ed home inventory since 2022 dire lows, but hey, look, it’s getting gobbled up!

Inventory is now declining nation-wide — signal that buyers are getting out in the droves to meet the new inventory gleefully.

This is not a bad thing. This is the seasonal market doing it’s thing.

— At a recent Mastermind in Austin, Aaron Amuchastegui (a bit of fame in the investing world) revealed that ~70% of real estate investors left the marketplace after the rate hikes. He revealed that over half have returned to the market. I scoured to find the source of this information from his presentation, but was not able to, so take it as anecdotal.

Right now, is a window for opportunity → Rates are low enough, folks with 7% rates are refinancing and reallocating their capital, sellers are seeing inventory move at a reasonable pace, and in Indiana we are pleasantly surprised at the results.

Downsides Right Now → The rental / leasing market struggled in the back half of 2025. Is that improving? In short yes, but many landlords are finding that their tenant applicants do not meet income / credit requirements. The low-to-middle class is still struggling with higher consumer interest rates and inflation. This is creating some issues for investors finding approvable tenants. 

Watch for Spring season to create a tight but effective leasing window, especially with the winter we have had.

Tidbit from Brandon Turner on IG → Brandon declared recently that single family homes are no longer a cash flowing business → They are back to being what they used to be: an Investment. Investors will look to see strong value gains, but have to adjust cash flow expectations to the new normal.

The TLDR is that buyers buying for long-term equity are going to win big, those in it for short-term cash flow are going to hurt big, especially short-term.

I consistently put multiple hours into each publication and offer it completely free. Consider becoming a paid subscriber (just $100 for the entire year), with perks to have a consultation with yours truly and a private Indy investor group chat! More perks, see below.

*These are all hand-picked properties that myself or our team has off-market, pre-market or coming-soon! If even slightly interested, shoot me a response and we can chat about the details of these.

**All Pro-forma numbers factor in 1.75% of PP for taxes, .75% of PP for insurance, 10% of rent for maintenance / capex, 10% management, 3% vacancy. 2.5% annual appreciation. For estimating purposes only.

We help sellers sell with maximum exposure both on & off-market.
If you have an off-market deal you want featured to our 3000+ email list please respond: [email protected].

Ethan Fernhaber is one of Indianapolis's most respected multifamily real estate developers — and he started with a $20,000 double wide trailer.

In this episode of The Roots Podcast, Indianapolis developer Ethan Fernhaber breaks down how he scaled from single family homes to 5,000+ multifamily units across Indiana, how to make the jump from residential to commercial real estate, and what faith-driven investing actually looks like at scale.

If you're an Indianapolis real estate investor trying to understand multifamily investing, raise capital, or scale beyond single family — this one is required watching.

Here's what we cover:
• How Ethan went from a $20K estate sale to large apartment complexes (and what nearly broke him)
• The real roadmap from single family to multifamily real estate
• How to raise capital and structure your first commercial deal
• Why he employs formerly incarcerated individuals at 25%+ of his workforce — and why it works
• "Keep your chips on the table" — the compounding wealth philosophy that changed everything
• How purpose and assignment separate operators who scale from those who quit

You likely heard the news that BlackRock acquired a significant portion of AES Power Company’s shares. If not, now you know.

What does this mean for the future of Indiana’s largest utility provider? Will this have an impact on electricity bills? How will this affect consumers and landlords alike? A lot to be determined.

For now, reports indicate that this was a move to provide working capital to fund unmet needs on Indiana’s power grid (yes, AI data centers are playing a role…). Don’t freak out too much: Indiana regulates utility rates heavily, protecting consumer bottom lines. AES was technically never a fully public utility to begin with. It has always had private investment making up a large share of ownership.

Do you think private equity should be able to own significant stakes in public utilities?

I’m now offering a paid version of this newsletter. It has some pretty neat perks and more ability to interact with our local investor community (group-chat is live!). Check out perks, it’s also a way to support this publication I put considerable time into.