Any Suggestions for a Newbie??

[Braighton Coey]

My name is Braighton Coey. I graduated from UC in 2011 with my degree in Architectural Engineering and now work with Messer construction as a Virtual Construction Engineer. I'm looking to get into the real estate market and recently attended Than Merrill's $200 class. I have a pretty good concept of the entire construction phase (I think) of rehabs, but am completely new to the steps prior and after fixing the house. Throw in taxes and LLC structure and I'm lost.

MY QUESTIONS: What advice can you give to a new person like myself? What is something you wish that someone would have told you when you were first starting? Any MUST DO's and MUST DONT'S are also welcomed.

I pick up on things pretty quickly and am willing to put in the effort outside of my 40 hour work week.  Let me know your thoughts and I thank you all in advance for your comments and answers.

[Barry H.]

BRIGHTON - as a Newbie Investor, you are a Bird Dog - that is what you can bring to the table. You are obviously educated and thus have superior organizational skills.  I owned cashflow properties for 13 years (still have a few), but I have amassed capital and have moved into Private Money Lending now.   Whether you are experienced or not, good deals can be found, especially if you know your local area well. Once you find them, you can't just shoot addresses to potential investment partners (like me). You need to do a solid workup on the property and submit it for lending consideration. BP has a great template you can use 5X for free:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/flip-analysis

Once you do this for a few properties, you will probably find one which matches the Lender's requirements - and YES, it is possible to get 100% funding. Understand, however that this means you cannot just go out and say "...Oh - I really like that property - and if I buy it and fix it a little, I will make 10% per year on my investment..." You have to find the $85K house in the $150K neighborhood or the dilapidated triplex which has 3 other multi-family buildings within a mile which are bringing in 2X the rent of the dilapidated triplex. You are working up the ARV(After Rehab Value) and selling that to your Lender. If the numbers pencil out, you will find a deal and you will make a profit on the Flip or Buy/Hold and rent it out.

Good luck in your Bird Doggin and if you have something you wanted to run past me - I am happy to assist you in your journey - just do you best to prepare a solid summary (as previously noted).

BEAR :-)