New Investor in Richmond, VA

[Ryan Grant]

Hello, I am a new investor in Richmond, VA. My business partner Chris Hertsch and I are co-owners of a local garage door business, A-1 Door Company. We originally were interested in getting into real estate investing because of our background in construction and a few good connections we have through the garage door business. We decided to jump in this past December and purchase our first property that we plan to BRRRR. We probably paid a little bit too much for it but we were excited to get started and are trying to handle the majority of the rehab ourselves to make up the difference. It has been a great learning experience so far but has been tough since we both have wives and small children and are working on the house on nights and weekends. It has definitely taught us a lesson and from here on out we will make sure we get a good enough deal so that we can to pay other people to fix it. Our plan right now is to BRRRR 3-5 properties per year as a side gig while still running the garage door business full time. We look forward to learning as much as possible on Bigger Pockets and hope to network with other investors, contractors, and property managers in the BP community.

Thanks for your time,

-Ryan

[Jeff Poarch]

@Ryan Grant I am pretty sure I went to school with your sister in law. We actually worked with her/A-1 to get a new garage door opener installed in our home a few years back. Small world! 

My wife and I are actually in a pretty similar position where we're looking for a decent volume of BRRRR's in addition to our 9-5 jobs. We're in an especially similar position because we too paid a little more for a house than what truly worked to get a good BRRRR. This market definitely makes it tough unless you've got a strong lead funnel. BRRRR's from the MLS are true unicorns.

My best advice I can give from my limited experience is to also always run numbers on a possible flip as an exit strategy if leaving money in the deal means you're going to lose velocity. Thankfully, Flips & BRRRRs have a lot of the same initial steps and so targeting one doesn't make the other impossible (or even difficult). 

I've found some great handymen/contractors and am aggressively researching hard money lenders and BRRRR friendly refinancing. Happy to be a resource however I can be.

PS: @Stephen Glover was the first person I ever talked to in the area that was into REI. He's your guy for all things BRRRR and property management. I'm looking forward to attending Taylor's meetups one of these days, I have heard great things.