All Forum Posts by: Allen Lomax

Welcome to WNC.  I see that you stated that you are planning for a full-time job.  Give the strategies you suggested fix/flip and buy and hold it is good you are planning for full-time work because to make it with those two strategies, will require full time and more.  Be sure that is what you want.  It is nowhere as easy or assured of profits as they make it appear on HGTV.

There are better real estate investment avenues for scaling your seed money.  You might want to look into multi-family, self-storage, or even mobile home park syndication.  With your seed money, you could invest as a limited partner with an experienced syndicator and gain tons of experience with limited risk.  From there if you still want full-time work you could invest as a general partner and even become a syndicator.  You'll scale your seed money much faster.  

Think Multifamily sponsors regular meetups in the Dallas Fort Worth area.  The next one is in Grapevine, May 20:  https://www.meetup.com/Ft-Wort...

Hello Jamary and welcome to real estate investing.  

You will want to figure PMI into your underwriting but with the power of leverage, which is high with 3.5% down it will not sink a good deal.

Talk to local mortgage lenders.  If you are a member of a credit union start there.  If you are not a member of a credit union find one that you are eligible to join and join.  

If there is such a thing as a local bank in your area, rare commodities in this day and age, talk with their mortgage lending officer.

If no local bank in your area you can always go to the two big two fail.  They all have mortgage officers and can help.

You should also talk with private mortgage brokers in your area.  

Not every lender offers the same terms even with FHA.

You have the right idea and house hacking is the best way to launch a real estate investing career.

I agree with Chris.  Talk to your agent and let her know of your disappointment.  It Can't hurt and it very well may help the situation.

On the other hand, maybe she is trying to passively-aggressively fire you as a client.  You won't know until you talk.  

My choice would be to invest as a limited partner with an established, experienced, and knowledgeable commercial syndicator.  Chances are your returns will beat the stock market by a considerable amount and your learning curve will escalate substantially.

With most syndicators, you will get all of the ideal benefits of real estate investing: Income, depreciation, equity, appreciation, and leverage.  With stocks, you'll lose a good portion of your earnings to taxes but with real estate, the depreciation will limit or even eliminate your tax liabilities.  There is no equity, appreciation, or leverage. 

As a limited partner, you will have zero tenant and other landlord headaches. Depending on the deal, you could be earning returns from day one with a substantial IRR payout within three to five years. With the right syndicator, you could be looking a 1.8 to 2 fold multiplier, so close to 400,000 to 600,000 in three to four years - all that as a passive investor while watching and learning from the Master.

The Hands of Investor by Brian Burke.  It is targeted at the passive investor investing in syndications but you'll learn a lot about real estate syndication.  It is spot-on in specifics of syndication, yet very readable.  

https://www.rentometer.com/  Best place I know of for rental comps.  You probably get all the comps you need for free.  They have a pro-plan that is also fairly reasonable but with just two rentals, the free plan will probably do.

The best way to start investing in real estate is what is now referred to as house hacking.  Essentially, you rent out a portion of your dwelling.  It could be an existing duplex, tri-plex, or quad.  The other tenants are paying your mortgage.  At the same time you get all the tax benefits that come with rental property.  It is a low risk way of breaking into real estate investing.  It give you property management experience.  It gives the tax breaks already mentioned.  It helps pay down the mortgage giving you equity through appreciation.  You'll find lots of articles here on BiggerPockets pertaining to househacking.

I'd suggest considering passive investing in a real estate syndication with an experienced sponsor.  

When investing in real estate it is never a bad idea to consider job growth, income growth, and population growth. When a city or region is experiencing all three, your real estate investment is swimming with the current rather than against. PcW in their Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2021 lists Salt Lake City as number 7. The Milken Institute report: Best-Performing Cities 2020: Where America’s Jobs Are Created and Sustained Salt Lake was listed as number 10 in 2018. In their 2020 report Salt Lake fell to 20th but 20th out of 200 is still not bad. In comparison, Cleveland is 175 and Columbus 100.

As Joe Splintrock already mentioned, price isn’t everything and there is a reason the Cleveland and Columbus are not high on the list of job creators. Having said all that real estate is local and there could be some very good opportunities in Cleveland and Columbus – be sure you know the local market through and through.