Dave Bingham from Tampa!

[Dave Bingham]

Hi gang. I've been a member for a few weeks now but have only recently gotten around to introducing myself and taking a more active role in exploring the site. I've been enjoying the podcasts. This last one with Ben, Josh and Brandon was interesting.

I've worked in the commercial real estate field for approximately 5 years. I specialized in appraisals and markets studies of multi-family units. The company I worked for also covered independent, assisted and nursing home appraisals. We have analyzed and visited over 1000 apartment complexes across the United States and performed approximately 200 market studies.

We also were involved as a primary appraiser for the government in assisting them with BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure). We provided estimates of the highest and best use for various military bases by studying the markets surrounding them.

While performing this work I accidently started my own company, selling games of all things, a number of years ago that performed financially much better than my work at the appraisal field so I left the business to pursue my own. I just sold the company this last December and I am looking to get back into the multi-family groove.

Unfortunately this seems to be the "hot" market right now for multi-family. I am interested in "flipping" but I want to limit it to emerging markets. I think the opportunities for this are very rare at least to my standards. I'm very much in Ben's camp here. I also would not be opposed to acquiring multi-family units for cash flow purposes long term either if they aren't "living on a prayer". I, like Ben, prefer a DSCR of 1.4 or better and a way of achieving that without have a 50%LTV. I'm also looking at Self storage investing in the next 3 years or so. I think this is an area that will continue to grow and experience accelerated growth. I'm also interested in syndication. Anyone that has experience with this and is looking for an excuse to talk about it I just gave you one.

If you guys have any tips or advice please feel free to let me know. While I have a lot of experience from one side of the business I'm very much new to the investing side aside from 5 SFR flips I did in 2002. I made a lot of money on those but a monkey could have done the same with that market.

Currently I work out of the house and contract out rental survey's and market studies for various property management firms, investors, and lenders.

If you have any questions please feel free to pick my brain. I'll be more than happy to help you out!