New to REI from South Florida

[Billie Cousans]

New to REI and looking forward to getting stuck in. I currently work part time in non real estate related work. Looking to use equity from my current home to purchase a condo or two in Broward County. I have a problem as many of the condo management companies do not have a contingency fund that is required to get a mortgage. Anyone know best way to get around this issue? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated : )

[Jorge Fernandez]

Originally posted by @Billie Cousans:

Originally posted by @Brian Garrett:

@Billie Cousans I would stay away from condos personally especially in Fort Lauderdale and Miami where there's significantly more supply than there is demand.

 Hi Brian, Why would you advise to stay away from Condo's and where do you recommend I invest?

 Check out this article. 
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2017/...

Related group just scraped plans to build a large new condo project. It's not Broward, it's Miami. But regardless, I like to watch what the big guys are doing to forecast market conditions. They know what's up. They have their finger on the pulse. If they are canceling a project this far in they are losing a lot of money. But it's for a reason and they must know it's lose this much now, or a lot more later. The market is flooded with new condos. The money coming from South America is drying up as the government over there makes it nearly impossible to get the money out. Add to that Donalds view on immigration scaring foreign investors into thinking that they won't be able to come over or worse, get kicked out after they purchased their beautiful new home over here. It's a bad recipe. 

On top of that, I work in construction full time. Work has brought me from Miami to Broward. There is a ton of construction up here. The number of tower cranes remind me of Miami in the boom days. However, being this close to the action I am seeing first hand the project I am on (a $25+ million 17 story condo ) is having problems funding as they are not closing enough presales. As a result we don't get paid and then the sub doesn't get paid, it trickles down and then their people don't get paid and walk off the job.

It's reminding me of that time not long ago before it all went south. Not saying no one is making money out there. But you have to be extra careful and extra sure of yourself.

I have been looking for deals for months and keep coming up empty handed. I am resorting to looking into buying cash at auction because it might be the only place I can find any decent deals. But even there I see things going way too high. So here I am still looking. Not sure where to invest in either.