New Active Investor in Richmond, VA

[Cheri H.]

Hello, my name is Cheri Hewlett and am a newbie in the RE investing world. I am a CPA, active in the financial industry over 13 years and have decided to go head first into the real estate industry. I've done TONS of reading during this quarantine and have gone 2/3 through the CCIM courses to work towards my designation. My long term goal is MF (120 unit) but am planning to leverage the profit from a few SFH flips to build up capital. I am seeking somewhere around 60% ARV, 1200-1500 sq ft, primarily cosmetic repairs, 3/1+ in the Richmond Or Chesterfield area.

With that being said, I hoping to find recommendations on real estate attorneys in the area as well as any wholesalers. I feel I’ve been struck by analysis paralysis for the very few possibles I’ve come across. I’d like to know how you all dealt with your first few and how you were confident in needed repairs? Did you put in an offer and have the inspection after, or are you having contractors walk through with you prior to making an offer?

Greatly appreciated and happy to be here!

Kindly,

Cheri Hewlett, CPA

[Shera Gregory]

Hi Cheri -- Welcome to the RIchmond VA investing community! There are many of us here to connect with. Right now the meetups are mostly all still virtual but a few are starting to return to in-person events. You can find those on meetup.com (for example, RING, Richmond REIA, Chesterfield REIA, Colonial Heights/Petersburg Real Estate). There are several lawyers in the area who focus on real estate. I work with Sean Tluchak at Tluchak and Taylor PLLC.

Your question about the timing of the rehab estimate is one that many folks struggle with especially in the current market where deals are often snapped up very quickly.  You can't really expect a contractor to come look at every prospective property you might want to make an offer on but it does help a lot to look at quite a few potential deals to start to get a feel for the total cost for certain levels of rehab. After you have that rough idea it's easier to figure out the offer you want to make that you can then verify with a more detailed look once you have something under contract. However, getting to that point takes some effort. One recommendation is to pay for a contractor's time to work with you on evaluating a few deals.

Best of luck! Please feel free to reach out if you like.

[Cheri H.]

Thank you Shera for the reply! Very helpful and that is a great idea to pay a contractor to help with that initial process of getting more comfortable doing preliminary walkthroughs on my own. I have received a few recommendations to checkout RING, and am part of the Chesterfield REIA as well. Hope to run into you at one of the meetings! Thanks again.