Best Strategy for 1st Deal / Property Sourcing Rules of Thumb

[Isaac Howland]

Hello All,

I made this account years ago, finally starting to get active now that I have a steady professional footing in my day job in architecture. This can be considered both a blessing and a curse, as I have decent and growing knowledge of what goes into permitting building projects, but I'm also relatively under-paid to other professions, and still am not licensed which is a whole different time and money sink to get that done for my next major pay-bump. With that said, my original intent on getting into real estate was to work towards being an architect-developer and capturing the efficiency of self-building and investment upside that architects often don't see as part of their fixed service fees. Ultimately I hope to get into crowd-funding larger developments and creative placemaking efforts once I can get some more working capital. 

I have about $10k to put towards a down-payment and an increasing variety of loan program options from some first time homebuyer grants (duplex eligible) as well as a mission-driven hard money lending program that's focused on getting locals to undertake scattered-site rehab and to curb gentrification from outside investment and yuppie tenants; then there's FHA 203k which I've heard can be alot to manage for a first-timer. I am pretty close to being ready to undertake a deal, with my main current decision being whether to work with this one contractor who is Philly-licensed but works more often out in Main-Line suburbs or taking the plunge and learning by fire trying to GC myself with some kind of mentorship and quality control supervision.

The other concern is a proper sourcing method, so as to not dive into a deal out of eagerness and at a too-high price point, knowing that most profit on a deal is secured through a low enough buying price. In a lot of improving areas in Philly, buildings in need of gut-renovations are asking well over $100k for single family and $200-300k+ for multi-family, before renovation (mostly looking on Zillow, could be that's my issue). I just want to find some consensus on what kind of buy-price, scope and strategy have first time investors found to be most stream-lined in this market? As well as any rules of thumb that I may have learned and forgotten or totally never heard of before.

Thanks for any insight and if you're in need of any design-related work feel free to reach out. 

Isaac