Emerging Market
Blog
Residential Real Estate Investor Information Center
Homeowner's Market Fundamentals Index
Newsletter
Data Products
Free Resources
Consulting Services
Investment Options
Educational Services
About Us
-Our Mission
-Our Philosophy
-Our History
-Our Process
-Our Team
Primer on Emerging Markets
Primer on Market Cycles
News Releases
Sample Documents
Contact Us
Redfish Emerging Market’s Mission
Our mission is to identify, track, analyze, and report key residential (multifamily and single family) real estate emerging market information, formatted in a well organized and easily understood data array, and to make this information available to investors at a reasonable cost.
We’re active real estate investors ourselves and the concept for Redfish Emerging Markets grew out of our own search for quality, accurate, current and affordable market data.
These simple principles summarize our bottom line company philosophy –
- We really do want to help good real estate investors make better decisions. It’s a fundamental truth – successful real estate investing is in many respects a “numbers game”, and good data fosters good decisions. Plain and simple. We use the same data you’re searching for in our investing business every day.
- We believe in the power of emerging residential real estate markets. We truly believe that astute, diligent, and thoughtful investors can find good, maybe even great deals in any market. Even more importantly we believe that these same astute, diligent, and thoughtful investors can ethically multiply their investment returns by investing at the optimal time in emerging real estate markets.
- We believe in making the best call you can with the information available. Real estate market data is a moving target to say the least, with some key parameters changing potentially every day. Our working standard is to make the best call we can with the data we have today, and we’ll capture the inevitable changes in our scheduled revisions of data – some reports are updated monthly, and no information in the system will be updated less frequently than every four months.
- We believe in being consistent. Comparative market analysis isn’t worth very much if strict standards and consistency aren’t part of the program – we carefully follow consistent rules and standards in researching, recording, and interpreting data. It’s a challenge at times – in the single family real estate world in particular raw data is sometimes hard to find and is not consistently reported and formatted.
- We believe in ethical and honest business conduct. As you know, the principle “buyer beware” applies in all aspects of life these days, but this venerable saying seems particularly applicable in the world of real estate. We’re astounded at how critical information is at times “shaded” to make a market look stronger than it really is. We have no vested interest in trying to favor a particular market over any other – we’re measuring strengths and weaknesses of specific markets just like you are. We research even more diligently when conflicting data sources are uncovered, and if we can’t resolve the apparent conflict, it will be so noted. If any member of our team owns or manages property in a market we analyze / review, we’ll disclose that fact.
- We believe in keeping it simple. Looking at market data for a community can be overwhelmingly complex, and it’s easy to get lost in all the information if you’re not careful. Sometimes the hardest part of our analysis is figuring out what data is really important, and what is not. Are we always right in sorting out the data? No - nobody in this business is 100% accurate all the time - but we pledge to keep continually measuring and improving our analysis tools to make them more sensitive and specific, yet easy to use and understand.
- We believe in being positive. We believe in the power of thinking positively and try to reflect that in all that we do and write. Earl Nightingale was right when he said “you become what you think about”.
- We believe in giving something back. We believe strongly that we live in a great country, and at a time when people can still accomplish their dreams if they work hard enough. We believe that those who have been successful should give back to those around them – that’s why we’re part of One Percent for the Planet, and give locally to organizations that better our community and region. We encourage you to do the same.
- We believe in making products that are better than they have to be. We’re value oriented investors and just like you we search out investments that offer uncommon value for our investment dollar. We strive to make every offering - whether it be commentary on our blog, our newsletter, free reports and data, or reports for purchase - of the highest quality, useful, and readily understandable.
- We believe that you should work hard, but have some fun every day. A simple concept, but a dear one that a nearly 90 year old patient shared with me years ago. She was an elegant, intelligent, articulate woman whose family had run a cattle ranch in eastern Montana, 100 miles (dirt road for 40 miles) from the nearest community with a hospital, without telephone (it was before satellite phones were available). They worked incredibly hard running their ranch – every day – but pledged to one another early on to have some fun every day, and she insists they did. Unbelievably at 89 she looked a physically fit 50, still danced, and was back hiking three months after recovering from her spine surgery. In part that’s why we’re located in
The vision for the service array that we at Redfish Emerging Markets provide started in earnest back in 2003. Here’s our story in brief.
Our founder, Mark McGlothlin, MD was involved in the active practice of medicine with the Flathead Valley Orthopedic Group in
He began to seek out educational opportunities around the country to learn more about real estate investing, and at a conference in
Reading everything he could get his hands on, and attending further conferences and learning opportunities around the country, including several with Dave Lindahl, McGlothlin began to focus on multifamily investments. He struggled, however, with the time demands required in running a medical practice balanced against growing his multifamily investing business. He was particularly intrigued with the concept of analyzing real estate markets in detail - trying to predict growth and stability - though was frustrated with the very high costs (thousands of dollars) that data service systems charged for the information detailing a single market.
He began in early 2003 to develop an analysis tool that would survey and rank real estate market data in a “user friendly format” for his own use. The tool would be uniquely focused on finding and ranking “emerging real estate markets”. Further development was slowed when he and his family purchased a working horse ranch in
By late 2005 McGlothlin was intrigued with the world of real estate enough to retire from his 25 year medical career and pursue real estate investing full time. The analysis tool was useful, though not complete. To make a long story short – another two years and dozens of changes / improvements in the analysis tool bring us to the fall of 2007, when McGlothlin and his team determined to share their data base and analysis with other investors – with the simple goal of providing a cost-effective emerging market analysis tool focused on the identification and thoughtful measurement of emerging residential real estate markets around the country.
Our proprietary database tool that we’re now using at Redfish Emerging Markets is the 9th distinct version of the same tool that McGlothlin envisioned back in 2003 – a far cry from the handwritten notes on 3x5 cards that he started with. McGlothlin readily admits that he never envisioned back in 2003 the current version of our data tracking tools, and notes importantly that while the data components themselves are straightforward for the most part, interpreting them together to “measure a market” is still an intriguing puzzle to solve every time.
Our proprietary database now tracks nearly 180 data points in well over 200 markets, with plans to expand to nearly 400 markets in
The process of acquiring and analyzing data is intensive and time consuming.
Market selection is the initial step – markets are selected after preliminary research by our team assessing simple but key parameters such as job growth, employment dynamics, population growth and demographic composition in a community. We have also developed relationships with Chambers of Commerce and Economic Development Committees around the country that keep us abreast of upcoming changes in communities. Our team continually monitors over 90 industry and real estate publications, financial publications, news services, and related web sites to seek additional information. Several markets we follow have been suggested to us by mentors, advisors, fellow investors, and friends.
Once we determine that a particular market is worthy of further detailed study, we begin a process of acquiring further detailed demographic, job / employment, and community growth / development information, using a variety of public and proprietary databases. We also spend a great deal of time personally interviewing community leaders, multifamily brokers, property managers, real estate attorneys, and real estate agents / brokers in a community in an attempt to build an objective understanding of favorable and perhaps even less favorable aspects of the market.
Finally the data is filtered through our data base scoring system and entered into our comparative market database tools, with a formal report published thereafter. We will not publish a report for purchase until we are convinced of the consistency of the information and its completeness.
As real estate markets are fluid and ever changing, each market we study is reassessed at least every quarter (4 times per year), unless there is some compelling change in the market that would dictate an update more frequently. All system databases are then updated with the most current market information and a current / updated market report then published.
Perhaps the most exciting part of our process is the comparative analysis that we are capable of undertaking with our data base, the results of which will be published in our monthly newsletters. Given the wonders of modern data base technology, we’re able to sort and rank the entire data base by any single variable or combination of variables – allowing us to perform very unique and even custom analyses that are quite useful and fascinatingly interesting. Never before has this complex a data resource been available at this pricing level.
At this point, every member of our team who is responsible for “handling data” is an active real estate investor, not just an employee crunching data that means nothing to them.
The principle in house leadership of our team is comprised of a small group –
Mark McGlothlin, MD (ret.), CEO
As detailed in the “Our History” section above, the concept for our data analysis tools and database originated with McGlothlin’s vision back in early 2003. Mark is a native Texan, and completed his medical training in
He serves as the CEO of Redfish Emerging Markets, LLC, and is intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. When not working hard in real estate related endeavors, he enjoys fly fishing, river running, backpacking and hiking, photography, skiing, reading, cooking, and sporting clays.
Jake McGlothlin, Vice President, Technology and Database Management
A native Montanan, Jake is the Redfish officer in charge of our critical technology and database systems, and he also is deeply involved in the day to day operations of the company. Jake attended his first formal real estate conference at age 14, and has been pursuing real estate related activities from that point forward.
Despite his young age, Jake also owns his own web design and marketing company as well as a property management company active in
We’ll be posting more information about our entire team over time.
Copyright © 2008-2013 Redfish Emerging Markets, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Fourth Quarter Newsletter Special - 12 issues discounted to $225. 25% off the regular price.
Click here for more details.