All Forum Posts by: Aaron Kovac

@Allen McGlashing thanks for the recommendation! I’ll check out that book.

@Jaron Walling thanks for the tips. I didn’t think to go about it that way and send to contractors. I guess I have some homework to do.

Have you ever gotten any deals from a company named New Western? I ran into an agent who works for them and seems like they are a wholesaling brokerage. But from my initial DD, their estimates of repair costs and comps used seem to have wild ranges. Not sure how reputable of a source they are for finding off market deals.

@John Warren I would agree with you and wanting to be involved in the rehab. I live in Austin and being a lender, I can tell you it’s extremely competitive here with the amount of people coming from California and New York. The price points are just too rich for my blood as far as investing goes.

San Antonio on the other hand is only an hour and half away and is the same distance/time as it was for me to go from where I grew up in Woodstock, IL to Chicago- so I’m not opposed to investing in SA. And it’s a lot cheaper of an entry point. I’ve met a few agents in the area from working with past client, that I can lean on to build a team.

When you go to see a property for the first time, are you bringing anyone with you such as a GC or inspector, before you make an offer?

Hi All,

So as I've been reading the BRRRR book, listening to podcasts and researching/practicing analyzing deals every day, I can't help but think about how you will know what a rehab might cost.

If you’re investing from a distance (like an hour and a half away), don’t yet have boots on the ground, and using just pics online to judge a property, I imagine it’s pretty hard to figure out. How are y’all judging what rehab costs might be? Visiting yourself (alone or with a GC/inspector)? Establish boots on the ground?

More or less, as I'm analyzing homes I find on the MLS for practice purposes, I look at pictures of these beat up old houses and never having done a rehab before- I have no idea whether one house will require 10k, 20k or even 50k. As well as which skilled professional might be able to assist with that.

Hopefully this makes sense, but would love to learn what others are doing out there! TIA

@Jason Mileshko

Ideally, anything between 1-4 units. Just trying to achieve proof of concept and to be able to get back any capital put into my first deal so I can do another, without tying it all up in the first one.

@Jordan Moorhead

Awesome, I’ll be there and I’ll share with some of my colleagues/partners that are interested as well! Thanks for sharing!

@Brooke Roeder

Definitely! I'm not really interested in doing a BRRRR here in Austin as I know how hot this market is since I do residential lending here. More or less just looking to learn from someone locally who has done it successfully before because I have no idea what I would be doing. I'm much more inclined to look at markets like San Antonio, Lubbock or somewhere else. If that makes sense.

I bought David Greene's book BRRRR and waiting for it to get here. Despite all my research I'm still left wondering things like "well how does one gauge ARV if there really aren't many comps available? How does someone figure out how much work needs to be done? Etc"

I like to think I have a well rounded understanding of how to fund such projects and the financing aspect since I’m a conventional lender, but the how-to and acquisition part of the process is what’s foreign to me.

Are there any experienced BRRRR investors in the Austin area that would be willing to sit down for coffee/lunch (on me, of course) so I could pick their brain?

Never done a BRRRR before but am trying to start building my portfolio using this method. Would love to hear the experiences of others.

@Carlos Goulart Hi Carlos,

Chris already spoke to a lot of good points on what you asked about, but if I can elaborate a little further...

To your question about whether to use an online lender or local lender, if you take away anything at the end of this, take away this - you get what you pay for.

Like anything else, sometimes the cheapest isn’t always the best. At a certain point, you start to lose out on quality and service. If you’re up to terrible communication and poor customer service, there are some dirt cheap online lenders you could probably find. Then at the opposite side of the spectrum, there are also lenders who probably overcharge for things, whether it’s because of a large marketing budget to run all the commercials and ads in your face 24/7 or because they’re a large nationwide lender with actual bank branches and have more overhead to pay for to be physically present in such markets.

I won’t try to sway you one way or the other. I work for the next largest lender behind Quicken and every lender has their own strategy to attract new clients.

Look into the differences between what is a broker and what is a lender, understand why and how they are different, then you will understand why the prices/rates are different. I don’t think one is any better than the other, but if you have to pick between a local lender or local broker versus an online Costco lender- you should pick the local lender or broker everytime.

That’s my $0.02 though! Good luck to you!

Hi All,

Just had a thought and wanted to get some feedback if possible... is it a good idea or bad idea to think about buying in a college town for the purpose of buy and hold?

On one hand, I can see it being easy to find renters each year, but on the other I can see it being troublesome for the summers when no students are around.

Any thoughts or feedback is much appreciated!