Newbie from Boston, MA!

[Dan Borecki]

Hi Everybody,

After being introduced to this website by my roommate about a month ago, I have been surfing around the site picking up a lot of great knowledge and today I finally created an account, so I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to this amazing BiggerPockets community!

About me:

I currently live in a suburb just on the outskirts of Boston, MA. I graduated from UMass Amherst in 2005 with a double major in Accounting & Economics and then subsequently obtained a master’s degree in Accounting (also from UMass). I spent my first 4 years out of college working for a big 4 public accounting company, primarily auditing Commercial Real Estate companies. I then left the auditing world to try my hand as a RE agent doing rentals at my good friend’s brokerage and in the meantime got my CPA license. I was doing well and really enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of being an agent, but was presented with a great opportunity in an accounting / financial reporting role at an institutional investing real estate company by my former counselor at the big 4 company that I couldn't pass up. I don’t regret my decision at all since it has been an invaluable learning experience, as owning my own successful investing company is my ultimate goal and what better place to learn than from the inside of one!

I’m really big into personal growth & development and on my 1.5 hours of daily round-trip commuting time I’m always reading something either about Real Estate, business, or some sort of self-improvement book. I've been out of school for about 8 years now and in the meantime of all of this learning on the job and out of work, I've been really working hard at trying to save up to make a down payment on a house.

With all that said, it’s been way too easy for me to get caught up in the paralysis by analysis phase and I’m finally now at a point in my life where I feel that I’m more than ready to get out there and take some massive action investing in Real Estate. So this summer I have finally got my nose out of the books for a bit and have been in the hunt for a 3 to 4 unit multi-family investment property that I can initially owner-occupy, build up some equity and then eventually move out of and get some cash flow from.

Having a full-time job it’s been a challenge to find the time to balance work and investing, but I've been fortunate that my company gives us ½ day Fridays in the summer, so I've been taking Fridays off to go house hunting with my friend who is a new RE agent, but is already a successful multi-family owner. Fortunately, my girlfriend is also really into looking at houses, so she's also been scouring the net as well and sending me listings that she finds interesting.

It took a lot of time and effort to find a good deal, but a few weeks ago I put my first offer in on a house that from the outside seemed like a great deal, but $650 later after going through the whole due diligence process (inspector, mason, plumber, and electrician – all found on the website Angie’s List which I highly recommend!) I found a ton of things in the short term that were going to be a big expense for me that I wouldn't be able to bear if ever want to do another investment after my first one, so I tried to re-negotiate, but the owners wouldn't come down enough on the price to a place that I felt comfortable in taking on the risk, so I retracted my offer and I’m back to the drawing board.

Despite the cost, the whole process was a really great learning experience and I’m excited to take all of the things that I learned from this deal into the next one. I can’t express enough how much taking action has really enhanced what I’ve been learning in books, as I can now compare my experiences in the real world to what is being taught in the books.

Anyway, that’s enough about me! I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you guys on here in this great community, exchanging ideas, learning from all of your experiences, as well as sharing my own. I would love to do some networking and hopefully build some connections in the greater Boston area with any of you who are also motivated and would be interested in sharing ideas, as well as potentially even doing some deals sometime in the near future.

Thanks for your time!

Dan

[Dan Borecki]

Thanks for all of the tips/info @Mehran K. . I think we have a lot in common in the knowledge gathering. I'm looking to do the same thing as you where I can systematize everything an have check lists for each stage of the process. I have it on my list to read the book emyth which is based around that concept.

I'm going to have to look into how to find wholesalers...I'm sure that would be a great way to find some discount properties.

I really like the Psychology of Achievement. I've listened to that one multiple times. I also really like the Master Strategies for Higher Achievement, Eat that Frog and his goals setting programs. His books the power of self confidence and No Excuses were really good book by him as well.

@Mike Hurney - Thanks for the encouragement!

So great news regarding that 3 family property that I talked about above where I pulled out of negotiations after the owners wouldn't come to where I needed them to....

I'm so glad I just pulled out of the deal and didn't cave and accept their original rebuttal of my offer which was to only cover $7,500 of the closing costs.

After the property went back on the market and within only a few days it was under agreement with someone else. Then after about a week I saw on the MLS it came back on the market again. I had already done a very thorough inspection as well as had a plumber, electrician and mason out to look at everything closely, so I am confident in my calculations of what needs to be done to make things work. So with that in mind I figured what the heck I might as well try again and throw out the same offer I had before since the owners are probably starting to get frustrated. So I had my agent call up the selling agent who also works in his office and she told him that the owners were now willing to do the knob & tube wiring removal (which was the biggest sticking point since it was going to cost about $5K according to the estimate I receive during my inspection and it would hinder me from getting home insurance). So I put in my offer in and actually added that they need to fix some backed up plumbing. My original offer had that they needed to take care of a mice problem that the building has and then at the suggestion of my RE attorney, we added a 1 year maintenance clause for the mice, as well as asking for $8,500 back at closing to cover my closing costs. The next day they accepted everything in my offer, which was much better terms for me. So now I just am in the P&S stage and then we'll have to get it to appraise at the market value to get the FHA loan.

Another great part of this negotiation was involving the mortgage broker & the FHA loan.... since I had pulled out of the deal 3 ago, the mortgage rates went up from around 3.75% to 3.85% and because of that I was going to have to pay an additional $6K for the down payment (5% rather than the 3.5%) in order to meet the FHA thresholds. That was devastating news, so my agent called up and did some negotiating with the mortgage broker and she agreed to honor the 3.75% rate. So that is so huge since if she didn't agree to that I wouldn't be able to do the deal since I was banking on that $6K to do all of the other repairs that are going to be necessary on the property.

So long story short I'm getting pretty excited and really looking forward to having this deal closing so I can get started on all of the renovations to bring up the value of the rents!