All Forum Posts by: Amit Kal

@Juan Maldonado I lived in Bogota for some time but I prefer Medellin to live.

I've been keeping an eye on a handful of properties for sale in Medellin (various areas, none of them special by any means; I just wanted to track them and get context on how the market moves) and here's what I noticed:

1) Not one of the 12 properties on my list sold over the 10 months I have been tracking them

2) The prices seem negotiable 

3) The prices in COP terms have stayed the same over the last year. This, despite the COP losing significant value against the USD over that time inflation (albeit that has been relatively low for the last few years)

4) They all rent for roughly .3% - .5% of the asking price. In that respect, there are no 1% buys that I have seen. Further the lack of low interest rates and long-term financing (to even locals) make investing there a difficult proposition when compared to investing here in the US. 

All this being said, if I do make the move there, I would like to be invested locally for two reasons. 1) I want my local liabilities (i.e. rent, day-to-day expenses, etc.) to pair with cash-flow in COP to avoid FX risk; 2) I do place some slight value on having some hard assets diversified outside of my home country in the United States.

I will make a trip down there in the next few months and plan on meeting with some local brokers. If you have a recommendation, please let me know.

Neil G. Percy N. Mark Nolan thank you all for the warm welcome! NYC has negative to maybe 3% cap rates. It's not buy and hold investor friendly unless you are further down on the supply chain and sourcing the deal, developing or rehabbing. That being said, it's a great place to live :) Forget critical mass, we have a critical mess!

What a great resource! I've been on this site for about 9 months now, but very infrequently. This year I plan to participate much more so I'm finally getting around to doing my intro.

I grew up lower middle class to really hard working dedicated immigrant parents. I'm public school educated in New York, no connections or pedigree. Just a sheer desire to want to build on what my parents gave us.

I've been working full-time for almost 15 years now, various employers in financial services and have held jobs in both IT and finance. Got married 18 months back, have a 9 year old step daughter and we have a 2 month old healthy baby boy.

Having well-paying jobs over the years ($100k-$200k) and getting my employers to pay most of my undergraduate and all of my graduate school costs helped me imo get a slight 'edge' on my peers.

When I "started" in real estate at 25, my net worth was about $60k after having worked real jobs for almost 4 years. I bought a three bedroom co-op apartment in Sunnyside Queens for $250k with 25% down and got two roommates to help me pay off the mortgage in 8 years.

My investing journey began 6 years ago when I picked up a 6-unit rent-stabilized building in Queens. You can read about that story here:

My NY Times story

I'm 37 now and have 12 "doors" that each provide bits of net cash-flow that very conservatively add up to about $3k/month EBITDA. Five of those units I picked up over the last year and are in Nashville, TN.

I'm looking forward to eight years from now when the biggest mortgages will be getting paid off--the additional cash-flow will be nice and will dovetail with my hopes of retiring from my day-job by 45.

Slow and steady wins the race. I'm looking to add more rental units to my portfolio. My sweet spot is in the $150k-$250k range. I can move on a deal pretty quickly with 25% down and close in 30-40 days (depending on the lender). Also have a small close group of associates that I can tap for additional funds if the right deal comes up.

I'd like to look further afield from NYC and Nashville. Obviously to make this happen, I need a great agent, a sharp inspector and a reputable and honest property manager. I hope I can increase that network here!

--AK--

Juan Maldonado did you ever end up doing in Colombia? Just wondering how it has worked out for you.