New to BiggerPocket and this is my first investment

[Ahmer Zaidi]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $119,500
Cash invested: $48,000

This is my first real estate investment. The property is a 2bd 2ba condominium. The property was in fairly good shape. Rehab included patching and paint, new laminate flooring throughout, new windows and new dishwasher.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I wanted my first real estate investment to be a condo in order to avoid having to directly deal with external maintaince of the property and wanted a property in which tenents paided all utilities. I live in the neighboring town so this property is close so I can manage it myself.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found this deal on the MLS and noticed the description mentioned the condo was investor friendly. The propety was currently rented and the tenant was going to move out and the seller would need to pay the mortgage out of pocket after that. I used that knowledge as leverage and kept submitting verbal offers after every price drop. Using the every price drop to reset negotiations. My max offer was once 122K which was rejected and my next offer was 118K and settled on 119.5K :-)

How did you finance this deal?

30 Year Fixed Conventional Loan @ 4.5% 25% Down.

How did you add value to the deal?

I added value with my persistance. I has an alert on the property and I showed up after every price reduce to let the seller know I was a serious buyer.

What was the outcome?

After the seller rejected 3 of my offers after the last price reduction the seller's agent then reached out to my agent to see if I was still interested.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

In retrospect, IMO, this is a good deal but not a great deal. I invested $13K into repairs, dishwasher, windows and flooring none of which will add to the value of the property. Although I budgeted $15K for initial repairs, the appriasal was only $500 above the purchase price. I need to do a better job of comparitive analysis prior running the numbers and making an offer.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

My agent and lender were both mediocre when it came to working with an investor.