All Forum Posts by: Andrew K.

Grace Ng Bethesda (especially near the NIH and Walter Reed campuses) also presents excellent opportunities for a tear down and rebuild. In fact, many of the area home builders actively market to owners in those neighborhoods. A good mix of older, small homes with large, new properties sprinkled in. Check out the area when you have some time. I drive through it daily and am always amazed at how quick listings sell there.

Russ McKelvey, thanks for that link. It looks like good times ahead for my CO property. Unfortunately, my place at Ft. Bragg may not fair so well....

I'd really like to see an equivalent article like this for each of the services. I'd especially be interested in what the USAF footprint will look like in Colorado Springs.

Thanks again.

Grace Ng welcome to BP! It seems like you have really put your previous RE experience to good use. When your purchased your townhomes? I also live in MoCo (Wheaton) and have watched the market explode this year. It really is tough finding deals these days.

Again, welcome and enjoy the amazing amount of knowledge on this site!

Karen Margrave I haven't seen how the Army (and other services) will actually execute the draw down. Total numbers are being thrown around, but as Tom Goans stated alluded to before, what ranks/seniority levels will be targeted and by how much. I seriously hope that this pending drawdown is not executed the same way as the early 1990s--with a mass exodus of talent and people.

Tom, you raise great points about the unpredictable nature of the military. I'm active duty Army and have personally been effected but much of what you listed.

DoD has privatized much of the base housing over the previous decade. Each post has varying degrees of housing available and, yes, many are building more to compete with off-base living options. However, there is a large segment of service members that choose to live off-base for a variety of reasons. A significant one is the housing allowance (BAH). Privatized post housing charges each service member, regardless of rank, their full BAH to live in one of their units. The problem with this is that these private companies do not honor the tradition of segregating ranks in their developments. Meaning a senior member may literally live next door (and share walls) of a junior member, and pay far more to live there then their neighbor. e.g. A senior soldier pays $2000/mo to live in a unit and the junior soldier sharing my wall pays $1200/mo. It's this disparity that drives people off-base in search of a rental where they can "save" some of their BAH.

Zach Schwarzmiller, Tom Goans and Elizabeth Colegrove, some good points made here. I hold two properties in separate military towns in NC and CO. I plan on holding on to them, however I am concerned that any downward movement in the RE market would limit people's ability to sell and thereby increasing the amount of available rental properties.

My CO house has steadily seen its value climb since the crash (when we bought it-ouch!). Rents took a dip downward initially after the crash due to the influx of available rentals. They've moved up since then.

My NC house is rents well, however there is well over 10 months of inventory on the market. Meaning it's really hard to sell and I expect rents to dip as people who can't sell are forced to rent. Plus the local builders are building new construction at a feverish pace, which doesn't help anyone.

I live in the DC area now and long to go back to a cheaper, military market and buy additional property. However, the talk of drawbacks really gives me pause when considering 2nd and 3rd order effects.

Taylor Jennings I'm not in Indiana, however I know the guys at RAMS Investing (Google the name, you'll find their site). Jason and Dustin are great guys and are crushing it in Indy. Happy investing!

-Andrew

General Odierno, the Army Chief of Staff, recently announced the deactivation of 10 Brigades (approx. 29,000 soldiers) by 2017. Additionally the Army is cutting about $400 million in construction projects.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/us-usa-army-idUSBRE95O1IR20130625

These cuts are spread out between 11 bases across the country; Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, Fort Carson in Colorado, Fort Riley in Kansas, Fort Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Campbell and Fort Knox in Kentucky, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York.

I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC when the results of the last BRAC realignment created a massive, unsustainable housing construction boom. Now the area is saturated with new construction and high average DOM for resale homes. The rental market seems to still be strong, however I believe these cuts may change that.

Are any investors closely following this (and broader DoD cuts)? Do you currently invest in any of the affected markets? If so, any plans to modify your strategy? Any thoughts as to the wider impact to the local markets?

Matt Whiteside, you certainly experienced plenty of roadblocks with this deal. I'd guess that most people would have given up early on in this process. Great job getting the deal done!

Could you describe how/where you got the knowledge to navigate this complicated deal? Did you spend countless hours on BP researching the forums? Did you ask for advice from BP members, real time while navigating the deal? Did you take a wholesaling course/have a mentor that guided you?

Thanks, and great job!

Daniel Paloscio listsource.com is a great resource, however the amount of parameters you can choose from can be overwhelming.

As a starting point for screening absentee owners, I suggest these parameters:
- 40% equity or more
- at least 7 years ownership
- 3-5 bedrooms (I'm assuming you're looking for SFH)
- Not corporate or trustee owned

A cool feature from Listsource is the ability to find properties based on geography. e.g. area code, city, county, etc. I particularly like the zip code + radius feature.

Play around with all the settings and see real time how many addresses your parameters give you.

Their cost seems to be competitive as well. Using the parameters above, I just purchased a list of about 290 addresses for about $50.

To purchase online you have to use PayPal, but can call with a CC #. You can choose to download the file in multiple formats, like Excel.

Good luck and make sure you cruise the forums for great info to help make your direct mail campaign a success!

Christopher Dwellingham I completely agree with Bruce Duval, take action!

I finally got off the couch a few weeks ago, picked a marketing strategy, and started marketing as much/best I can. The leads are steadily starting to come in.

The best education is action. I've learned more from talking to sellers, agents, visiting properties, taking angry phone calls, etc in the past couple of weeks than I can write here. Plus it's exciting and you 'feel' as though you're accomplishing something. Just get started!

Best of luck,

Andrew