All Forum Posts by: Adrien C.

Do you like working with insurance agents? Real estate agents? Plumbers? 

I see what you’re trying to ask and it’s like any profession. There are good people and bad people. Ethical and unethical. Winners and losers. 

So if you find a good insurance agent who provides value, you use their service. Same with real estate agents and wholesalers and plumbers. 

A good wholesaler provides you with off martlet properties with hopefully fewer people fighting over it compared to the mls. A good wholesaler has tools that provides them with realistic comps (and- they have to know how to use the tools and understand how appraisers value houses). A good wholesaler should be able to explain the condition of the property but not necessarily estimate the rehab as two people could do the same thing at totally different costs. 

We are putting new tenants on M2M leases so if we have issues, we evict based on non-renewal and not due to non-payment. Judges are currently honoring it. 

NW Indiana is a great area for rental properties! 

Where in Indiana? Who should we avoid using for management?

There are several towns in Lake county (the NW corner) that are great areas for OOS of investors. 

@Gloria N Gear I sell dozens of properties to OOS investors. Some as wholesale deals they rehab with their team and some as sort of turnkey properties. 

@Sam Shueh having a mortgage for interest deduction is stupid. So you want to pay the bank $15k in interest to save $4k in taxes? Yeah, that’s dumb math no matter how you twist. 

@Femi Ibrahim that’s a great income and it shouldn’t take you long to start buying properties. I’d do 2 things. First, I’d focus on your home front. That means no debt outside of the house and a 6 month emergency fund. After that, I’m tossing all extra money to real estate. For me, I’m paying my house off on a 7yr plan so I have plenty left each month to build up a down payment. At the same time, I’d figure out what you want out of real estate and come up with a plan. Single family or multi. What markets. Age of house and # bedrooms. And anything else that is important. The goal is to take all the emotion out of buying rentals. You have a written plan and when you find a property, it either passes you test or doesn’t. No emotions. 

We have had success getting M2M tenants out. 

Hammond is far from slum and it's less slumlord than Portage. Maybe back when you grew up in this area. Hammond has exploded with renovations and prices going up 40-60% in the last 2-3 years. Back in 2017, you could get a 3/1 slab for $75K and get $1000/m rent. Now I'm flipping those for $125-145K depending on size. Even Gary has pockets where prices have jumped. Surrounding cities in Lake county (Munster, Dyer, Schererville, Crown Point) are solid A areas. Merrillville is B but trending down. Porter county is decent but you'll pay the same for stuff as Lake county but get lower rents. But by all means, avoid Hammond. I've pulled out $500-600K in income from Hammond each of the last 3-4 years from wholesaling/flipping so yeah, that place sucks :)

Back to the original question, they are both decent areas with a variety of A-D options. I think prices (and rents are going to be lower in the Indianapolis market. But neither market is better than the other. Both have access to airports near by so if you're OOS, you can get to either location easily. If you're local, you probably want to invest in the one you're closer to. 

@Grant R. is that total closing costs or just the buyer/seller's side?