Houston Newbie and First Deal Scenario!

[David Seale]

Hello BiggerPockets Community!

A little over month after my first exposure to BP and RE Investing, I'm unequivocally convinced of its profitability and incredibly excited to join/learn/contribute from this community. One of the things I am blown away by is how much time members of this community offer their time advice to help others succeed. Thank you all for that.

A little about me... I'm 32. A native of houston. I grew up in St. Petersburg, FL. Graduated from the University of Houston Conrad Hilton College of hotel management. In my career I've been a golf club professional, worked for Apple Inc., and was a digital brand marketer for the best company to ever do it, Nike. I'm also engaged to be married and she's just as excited about this endeavor as I am. I would consider our real estate experience to be on the low end, however we purchased a home about 18 months ago and have listened to about ten podcasts in the last month so that must count for something. Im looking forward to learning from everyone on the forums and connecting with local BP members.

If you’re still with me, I’ve got a deal we’re working on I’d like to share and few questions for those who have the time. :)

We have been "driving for dollars" as @Brandon Turner likes to call it and last week we came across a phone number posted on a residential lot in an up & coming, gentrifying neighborhood of Houston’s Fifth Ward (77020). The lot had not been posted for sale on any thing like HAR, Zillow, etc. Most would probably consider the area a dangerous part of houston, but if you were to reference Zillow crime maps... it's in the green. Also, there's lots of development going up in the area with new town homes (and rehabbed homes alike. The seller wants $25k for the 5k sf lot (fwiw, the city appraised the lot at $21.2k.) We verbally agreed on $24k and are in the process of arranging the CASH sale. After a really good amount of research on land values in this and similar areas, we really feel like we have a "good deal" on our hands. The land has been about %70 cleared with some work left to do in tree removal and high grass. He has also built new 6ft wooden fences on the front and back (shorter sides) of the lot as well as an iron gate that is on a sliding track for opening and closing. There is an existing 3 ft chain link fence on the sides of the property.

Our goal for property land is to either sit on the land for a while or build two container homes/units and live in one of them (the later is preferred). Kind of a combination of house hacking and the approach used by @Cameron Skinner in podcast 168. Right across the street is Englewood Union Pacific Rail Yard and there are thousands of shipping containers sitting on this lot. I think this unique combination provides a cool story for the homes. Thinking 3 40 footers at about 960+ sf per unit. We would also plan to vacate and rent our current home. We currently pay about 3.4k on the mortgage (we went with big and shiny for our first home, we wish we hadn't) and feel that we could rent it out for close to that.

Here are a few questions we have, they're in no particular order. If you have time to answer one or all, its equally appreciated!

1. For those in Houston and know the area, what do you think of the deal?
2. If you were in my shoes and wanted to build, what type of loan would you go after to complete the build on this property? Private hard money lender? Bank construction loan?
3. How should I approach individuals for private loans if I go that route? BP calculator forms are obviously a plus to show the potential of a deal, but what about specific contractual agreements? What is the expected turnaround time of a private lender?
4. Partnerships. How have you learned to navigate through conflicts of interest and decision making in your ventures with other partners? On this exact deal we included and developed mutual agreements to move forward as a "partnership" with the sis/bro-in-law and it's already proven to show some differences in opinion.
5. If you live in Houston would you want to grab a beer, play golf or eat a meal somewhere?

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to interacting with everyone.