How I FAILED but actually SUCCEEDED in New York City

[Nazimcan S.]

It's about 11pm, at this slightly inappropriate hour the seller's broker wants to know if I can close or not. With Brandon Turner's book "The Book On Rental Property Investing" in one hand, I'm thinking about a last minute miracle I can conjure up. Thankfully my girlfriend is supportive of such madness. I was stressed because my offer was accepted however my lending strategy fell through. Yes, the famous house-hacking with an FHA loan strategy. Before that, here's some background.

I got a W2 position about 10 months ago JUST so I can qualify for an FHA loan. I love that job now however, it is a startup company. We are 700k financed and currently in the process of raising a bridge round of 500k to get us to a Series A round of about 5 mil. All good so far. Yay. What I didn't calculate was that, in between funding rounds our team sometimes doesn't get payroll for 2 months or so until investment dollars hit the bank. Guess when this happened? You guessed it. RIGHT WHEN I FOUND THE DEAL. I've been looking aggressively in the South Bronx area for about a year now and nothing, I repeat NOTHING made sense. Nothing seemed to cash-flow. Many times I said "This is impossible to do in NYC". The classic hot market adage. I don't know. I didn't give up. I went harder. Like making friends with local Deli owners to keep an ear out for you type hard. Finally, not through my Deli friends 😃 but through my broker I got something. By this time my eyes are pretty well-trained to analyze a property. One look and I knew. Could this be possible? Did I just find a deal?

Cash-flow; When I'm living in the property - 1500$, when I move out w property management included 800$ on 3 unit multifamily with a finished basement. 3 over 3 over 3. 1900$ rent per unit after rehab which was generously estimated at 30k. My calculations included rehab costs. Cap rate 6.5.% Saw the property, everything looked as expected. I made the offer right away. 570k asking, seller's concession closing costs, which is how I would finance the rehab. Offer accepted. That day I think I felt like that scene in the Matrix when Neo starts seeing the code and the music starts.

Then I got the phone call from our company; we are not getting payroll for another 2 months. Here is where I have to thank @Darren Sager for putting on the BP NYC events on where I met @Matt Faircloth. I'm very thankful to @Matt Faircloth & @Elizabeth Faircloth for being incredibly supportive and mentoring me through this most critical time. The reason I even got this confident was because I knew I had the right people in my corner. I don't know if I'd have the audacity otherwise. The underwriter said no way we can lend if you dont have those paystubs like a square peg in a square hole. I had delayed the process too long already while trying to figure out what to do and the seller wanted answers or was moving on. I confessed. Not happening. And last attempt I said "Hey let's seller finance this. 5 year note, higher interest rate?" The seller had a mortgage so that didn't happen either. So I failed.

Here is the thing though. I learned one thing. Nothing is impossible. I FOUND A DEAL IN NYC and if it wasn't for an unfortunate reality of life, I would have locked it down like it's nobody's business. There are deals to be had. Even in New York City. I experienced this first hand. And I will find a deal again. I've gained confidence and know what to look for and HOW to look at it. This alone is success to me. I never thought my full on BiggerPockets post would be something like this. I'm going to go take a bubble bath now. Thanks for reading and make sure to connect with me, you don't have to be a Deli owner.