All Forum Posts by: Steve Marshall

Isabella,

I am also in Bangkok. While I'm not really looking to buy here, I am always willing to sit down for a beer or coffee. Send me a PM.  

Steve 

William, 

I am also in the military and getting close to retiring.   I just bought my first pure investment property from overseas...looking forward to getting back to the states and continuing the journey.  

Look forward to following your efforts on here.  

Steve 

I'll add to this:  I'm in a similar situation.  I'm overseas and almost missed a payment...the first one due on a property I just closed on.  I realized I hadn't allowed enough time for the payment to make it's way from  Thailand to the US.  I had to use some crazy google-foo to find a number to call and pay 5 days late.  Turns out my mortgage had been sold and the payment would go somewhere else via mail once it made it to the original mortgage company.  Had I not called and paid by phone I would have certainly missed a payment by the time my check made the trip.  

Lesson learned.  Find those coupons in the closing packet and make that first payment asap after closing...no matter how long until it's due.  (for me the first payment wasn't due until 42 days after close.)  It's easy to let it slip your mind and impossible to set up auto payments until it's been sold...often multiple times.  

Caveat:  I use property management

I think I could have used self-mangement at a distance on my property if:

1) low maintenance/newer property.  On my house that was built in 2001 I have had an average of 2 calls per year.

2) low maintenance tenant.  I have had a military officer  and family in one of my properties for 3 years now.  (same property as above)

3) established connections with a handy man and a couple of key maintenance people.

You can do it without those three things...but as you lose each one of them you make your life more difficult.   

Get an investor friendly Realtor who has property themselves.  They will point you in the right direction.  Also, have you thought of using auction.com or similar sites?  I used a combination of those to close on my first deal recently.  (sight unseen from Thailand)  Nerve wracking and a bit more risky, but you reduce risk with a good realtor, property manager etc.

Allow me to agree with 3 things:

1) do serious DD on the flood insurance.  I have waved off on two properties in florida due to finding out the flood insurance price.  If you combine flood zone with hurricane insurance on a property it will kill cash-flow. (especially if the property is build on a wood frame.  

2) I'll pile on counting the PM in your calculations.  

3) Finally, Be overly conservative on your MX and CapEx numbers...on a 40 year old property you can only come out ahead. If you want to be exact, find out age of roof and HVAC and estimate from there using FHA numbers.

Good luck...I think this is possible, but just needs a little more research.

Steve

Another consideration is the quality of tenant. Are they long-term no hassle tenants or people that call you to change the light-bulbs? Maybe they all don't get the same rent increase? I recently chose to raise rents on one tenant for about half of what the market would bear because he had been there for 3 years and been a model tenant who never called for anything. I'll take a few less dollars a month to keep a good tenant and save the hassle. (I did raise it though...and may do so again next year).

Agree, best bet is to find a partner or see if the owner is willing to carry the note while you operate.  Make an offer whereby you give profit at X% and get to keep everything after.  Then it's on you to up the cashflow.  When you do, you bank that cashflow and use it to buy the property.  

This all requires some negotiations with the owner.  Looks like you need to start working the phone!

Steve 

Agree with Randall, I don't have first hand experience, but everything I have read, including VA documents makes me understand that you can get out if you have documentation that you intend to live in the property for a year.

I do think this leaves the system open for a little "gaming"...i.e. buy the property 2.5 years into a tour and then move at 3.0.  No, you didn't have orders, but you had an expectation to get said orders...  

That's the part I'm not sure of, can you game it.  I mean, in reality you never "know" if you're going to move, do you?  

Please let us know what you find out.

Steve 

Awesome that you're ready to buy! Need some more numbers... Rents? Estimated repairs? ARV? Buying a place for 30 that's worth 40 and then having to fix it seems like a bad deal...but some more numbers would help confirm or disprove that initial gut reaction. Steve