All Forum Posts by: Abraham Saldana

• 100 % occupied
• Roofs replaced within the last 5 years
• HVACs replaced with the last 5 years
• Stable rental history
• Near downtown Pinehurst, where the PGA tour plays 
• 9% CAP Rate
• 8 units with shared parking spaces
• 4 units with attached garages

@Chauvin Rupley

For my properties that I have that are within 2-3 hours drive distance, I manage them myself. With the frequency of moves and the little/no money down you put into a VA loan, after you calculate for insurance, mortgage and maintenance / repair funds, I found that a PM would roughly cut my cash flow by about a third to a half.

That said, I dont mind managing myself because I bought / priced / upgraded my rental so that only those senior enough ( and usually responsible enough) are able to afford it.  

For one of my properties in Savannah, I do use a PM.  They are great, but as I stated earlier, my cash flow is barely $50, whereas if I didnt have them I would be cash flowing around $200 or so.  The main reason why I keep this property is because it cash flows (despite how minimal it is) and because the equity I get every month from someone paying my mortgage is over $500.  So in reality, I really make $550 a month on this property, even though I can only play with $50 of it.  Ive done that now for almost 8 years and I have over $70K of equity in there that someone else paid for.  And once this property is paid for in a few years, my cash flow will jump to $1250 a month plus all the equity in the house.

This is why buy and hold is such a good deal for the military.  Move, buy, repeat and slowly accumulate wealth through others.  I only have 5 properties now, but if / when I pay off all the mortgages on the properties, I will be making over $9500 in cash flow per month, plus all the equity in the houses. 

Let me know if you have any other questions and best of luck Chauvin!

@Chauvin Rupley

Welcome to the community!  I am active duty army as well and started on this "real estate" journey just a few years ago.  Since we dont have a lot of time on our hands naturally, I have been doing "buy and hold", which goes hand in hand with how frequent we are forced to move.  Just a couple of tips from one newbie to another:

1.  Since you will be moving...a lot, know not only WHERE you want to rent, but WHO you want to rent to when you leave.  This has helped me immensely as I bought properties that were on the high end side, but I would get A/A+ tenants who rarely ever bother me, and make land lording very easy.  Plus the appreciation in those areas are generally pretty good.

2. The VA loan is great, but from the 2nd time on, if you use it, your funding fee is 3% of the purchase price, which can definitely hurt cash flow. Try and put at least 5% down if you have the cash, it'll help. And TRY to refinance out of your current primary home to a conventional loan before you leave. That way you have the super low interest rates available to you for the next 30+ years vs an investment loan rate, and you get your full VA eligibility back. I made this mistake once and its going to cost me over 10K in interest before I can pay it off fully.

3.  Generally, DONT BUY in a military town during PCS season...competition is CRAZY and you'll end up paying a premium.  Try and buy during the lull, especially during Winter, you'll save a lot of money.

If you have any questions let me know, im glad to help!

@Charles W. as long as you live in the property initially. The VA does not care if you rent out individual rooms. You are required to live there as your primary residence. That's about the only living restriction the VA house.

 You can do an immediate refinance.  Ive done it a few times now.  There is no wait period on the property for that.  

@Jeremy Walker:  Now is a GREAT time to invest in Fayetteville.  There was a huge buildling boom and the market was over saturated so prices are starting to fall back down to realistic levels.  There are a lot of multiplexes available.  I would try and find a quad plex personally, and if you have the on hand cash to refinance, then I would do that after you have stabilized your tenants.  Either way best of luck and if I hear of any good multiplexes opening up I will let you know.  

@Ryan M.  I know that you want to start locally, but I would consider the Durham / Triangle market.  There are still lots of cheap(ish) houses with plenty of upside here.  As for turn key properties, that is what I am currently doing near the Fort Bragg area in Fayetville.  Even cheaper houses there, but you will want a good real estate agent to guide you to the best places to buy that senior officers and enlisted people are.  They make for great renters.  If you have any other questions about either of those areas let me know, ill be glad to help.

Hi everyone,

I recently closed on my 5th SFH in Durham NC, and have been driving for dollars for my next property to purchase. Through some fearless door knocking and good luck, I was able to find a 12 unit complex that the owner wants to sell that is currently unlisted. After some initial back and forth, we came upon a number we could both live with. Now, Ive run the numbers and they came out great:

800K
10% CoC returns
$1800 monthly cash flow after a very conservative 10% vacancy, maintenance and management fee's.


My problem though is that even with a family investor, I still need 80K to get a commercial loan.  How do I find additional outside investors and what rates / terms do most people utilize?  I have offered my friends / family 10% returns on cash provided for 5 years with a refinance and cash out at 5 years for my previous properties.  But that has been with friends/families.  What do you guys suggest?

@Jennifer Santana  I invest solely around military posts.  The biggest thing that I have found to help me out with keeping vacancy's and management time low is to know not only WHERE around a base, but WHO you want to rent to.  We cater exclusively to higher ranking NCO's and Officers and have had zero issues with our tenants the last 5 years.  Here is what we do:

1.  Ask on post housing where the best schools and where the majority of the officers/senior NCO's live.

2. Drive those areas, and remember where you liked the most and save those areas for search alerts on zillow/realtor.com, etc.

3.  Do NOT BUY during PCS season, housing is usually tight, with multiple offers and good deals are harder to find.  Wait for the time frame (around OCT-DEC) when people get orders to move out, but not a lot of people are moving in.  This is how I was able to find a few deals at about 80%-85% of value that was turn key ready.

4.  Know your market.  Whenever we do have to renovate, we do it with high end appliances and price at the upper end of BAH rates so that only senior NCO's and mid-senior officers are looking at our properties.  Even though this makes our potential pool smaller, when we do get a renter, they are usually very quality renters

5.  When putting a property up for rent, the BEST time to do it around a military town is in March-Late April.  That is when the majority of people moving to the area start to look for houses/rentals.

I hope this helps!  If you have any other questions let me know, ill be glad to answer!