Even in a boom, real estate takes moxie

updated 4:57 p.m. ET July 24, 2005

TULSA, Okla. - The Pink House does not look like a family establishment.

Outside, the battered house on the scruffy north side of Tulsa is the color of Pepto Bismol — hence the name.

Inside, walls have been painted a nauseating turquoise-and-magenta pattern. There is a bar where the dining room would be. In the corner of one cavernous room is a tiny, carpeted stage.

“I’ve always wanted to be a strip club owner,” investor Trisha Allen quipped as she strolled around the place.

Yet when she surveyed the overgrown yard and grimy commercial kitchen, Allen saw it as the charming yet affordable future abode for a big Midwestern clan.

“This is a money maker,” said Kent Hildebrand, her real estate agent.

In the past eight months, the 30-year-old computer technician has turned less than $20,000 into an impressive little collection of rental properties. The Pink House is her most recent acquisition. But her eyes are on a bigger prize — a million-dollar commercial property that would produce sufficient income to enable her to quit her job dealing with “PCs and the people who break them.”

In this era of skyrocketing prices and rock-bottom interest rates, many people share Allen’s dream. Late-night infomercials babble about big payoffs with no money down. Slick self-help gurus host $3,000 seminars where they promise to reveal “secrets” that can turn anybody — even you — into a real estate tycoon. In especially hot markets such as Miami and San Diego, people buy and sell condos as if they were trading tchotchkes on eBay.

Any economist will tell you this is nuts.

“Housing turnover is now reaching Ponzi-like proportions,” warns Stephen S. Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley.

Real estate mania is this decade’s version of the irrational exuberance that pushed Internet stocks to ridiculous heights during the last decade, only to come crashing down at the beginning of this one. And just as many investors wish they’d never heard of etoys.com or XO Communications, a lot of would-be real estate tycoons may soon rue the day they started buying property.

But Allen isn’t likely to be one of them. She lives and invests outside the bubble, where home values have climbed much more modestly over the past few years and landlords can still expect to collect enough rent to cover their costs. In a world gone mad for metes and bounds, she is an example of what it takes to succeed in real estate reality — hard work, business acumen and a high tolerance for the odor of mildew.

Home prices in Tulsa have risen a modest 2.8 percent over the past three years, a tiny fraction of the appreciation in bigger cities such as Los Angeles (84.9 percent), New York (53.3 percent) and even Milwaukee (31.9 percent).

There are some signs of froth on the south side of town, where executive McMansions are sprouting the way drilling rigs did back in the 1920s, when Tulsa was the “Oil Capital of the World.”

But Allen wants nothing to do with granite countertops and double-height foyers — never mind that she can’t afford it. She obsessively scours the real estate listings for rundown properties that are listed below their true value. Then she bargains hard to get the best possible price.

“A lot of it is just recognizing deals where other people don’t see them,” she said.

Take the Pink House. The place immediately stood out when Allen spotted it in the real estate listings — and not just because of the paint job. Here was a 2,300-square-foot house selling for $24,000. That’s incredibly cheap, even for Tulsa.

Allen’s first question: Why?

“Let’s go find out what’s wrong with it,” she said to Hildebrand.

When they pulled up to the house, the two were immediately struck by its extreme pinkness and unsightly steel fire door. But what really grabbed their attention was the neat black lettering on one wall identifying the place as “The Pink House.”

And below that, in fancier script: “Giving Back to the Neighborhood.”

MORE FROM REAL ESTATE

Real estate Section Front

Foreclosure is a problem for celebrities too Mortage rates fall slightly, but still above record Pending home sales climb in May Foreclosure help available to more homeowners Mortgage applications decline Home prices fall, but trend is easing Reclaiming blighted neighborhoods New-home sales slip, missing expectations Home sales climb, but at a sluggish pace Housing market may return to normal in 2012 Real estate Section Front   Add Real estate headlines to your news reader: