All Forum Posts by: Andrew Coffey

Thank you everyone for your replies. Indeed the primary purpose for being interested in real estate is buy and hold rentals with the ultimate dream goal of being able to replace my income with rental income.

Unfortunately I have about 3k saved up.(Not including the HELOC I just started started the paperwork for yesterday) I know that's not the 20% needed for even the most basic deal, which is why I began to look for other options. And from there is was a cascading overload of information. (You should see my computer room, I have notebooks, sticky notes, printer paper and flash cards everywhere as I was connecting the dots trying to figure out the perfect plan.

What I'm thinking would be the best bet for me, would be to go the FHA/203k route if I could find a reasonable Quad or Tri plex and take one of the units for myself, renting out my current home AND renting out the other 2/3 units of the small multi.

It's not a matter of if I could save up the money, I could have 8-10k saved up by christmas if nothing catastrophic happens, it's just a matter of the fact that I have been studying off and on for weeks and itching to pull the trigger. 

As a side note, I fully intended to use a property manager from the get go, and I discovered they usually charge around 10% assuming that is fair enough to not fight over, even if I only make $100 a month (profit) then I would consider it a victory, albet a small one. So ultimately a turnkey would be ideal since the property would already have a tenant or at least be tenant ready.

It's not that I don't know what my options are or what my next steps should be, it's that my hands are bound because I simply don't have enough for the conventional loan and the hard money lender option is a little intimidating because of the high percentages and short terms (What if no one buys the property within the year... Then I'm screwed and possibly ruined)

I have decided to take the deep dive into real estate investing. I've been doing an insane amount of research and I think I'm (Lets be real, I KNOW) getting stuck with analysis paralysis and I haven't even looked at a house yet.

My first hurdle is on the topic of funding. I don't have the funds to purchase a house outright and I don't have the 8-10,000 needed for the 20% down on a 40-50k house. (Roughly the ballpark I'm looking at)

I have options, I have a LOC and I could potentially get a HELOC/HEL.

I could get P2P lending for the downpayment and then take that money to a conventional lender.

My house is in my name, but my wife could get a FHA loan and shoot for a Du/Tri/4-plex (This would go above the 50k soft limit of course but I am concerned about the down payment rather than getting the loan itself.)

I could get a hard money loan for a few points, use credit to fix and flip, or get the hard money loan and hope to find a conventional lender after the place is fixed up with tenant in place.

Along the FHA route I could do a 203k to fix a place up (Especially the before mentioned 4-plex)

I could try to find someone who is willing to do seller/owner financing and cut the bank out entirely if possible.

On the other hand, I could do a few wholesales to build up some capital...

The problem is, I get nervous and can't talk confidently even about things I am deeply passionate about. I could talk to my wife or friends all day about investments or budgets but as soon as I'm talking to strangers I get mushmouth.

I have a decent chunk of info and understanding about the topic but I just can't seem to pull the trigger. I'm not concerned about an 'easy' way rather I am afraid of messing up and it knocking down my house of cards. I'm not so poor off that I cannot sustain a small hit but I am afraid of somehow getting a house I cannot sell or rent out and losing money month after month until having to default.

What should I do? What does the Bigger Pockets community consider to be the least risky (even if it means the least returns) way of investing? If anything, to build up the capital to purchase a house from a better standpoint.

I guess wholesaling would be the best start, but how do I find the investors when the home owner couldn't?

I started up an LLC a few months back, planning on building up a portfolio of rental properties over time, and I was wondering, could I write my home off in taxes (For business expenses) if my fiance lives with me, 'paying rent' (Both our incomes go to the same bank) and is there a way for her to lessen her tax burden by saying she is paying a certain amount each month to me as a 'land lord'?

I know this would be essentially double-taxing ourselves by taxing her income a second time as my business income, but is there a way to write off enough taxes to cover the difference, if that makes sense?

I'm new to real estate, the mountain of information, paperwork, legal this, illegal that, and just plain uncertainty is overwhelming. I'm looking for someone to help educate me in what makes a good deal, starting with how to find one, get it under contract (To wholesale, but eventually I want to get my own deals) and get to the closing.

Making some educated guesses, I need to form my own LLC to start, but after that I'm kind of lost. I've been suggested to contact a direct mailing company to help find motivated sellers. (I can produce a list of pre-forclosure houses in the area I'm marketing to with a program I bought) but in the eventuality that someone picks up the phone and dials me, how then can I be sure that I don't waste my time and money on making sure that the lead is a actually a deal in disguise? I have a full time job that I must dedicate 40+ hours a week to, leaving me with very little time (Save for weekends) on getting my snowball rolling. If I were more familiar with how the process is, from beginning to end, I could more easily replicate it, so in that endeavor I'm hoping to work with a Flipper, in a symbiotic relationship, where I find a good deal that they finance, get my cut for finding the deal while they move on to rehab the house.

I'm more than willing to put the work in, I don't expect a payday for nothing, my first few deals don't even need to really get me any money, experience is the desired result. Once I know what I'm doing I can begin to do my own thing.

Also, I've heard some say that wholesaling is a legally grey area, that it is both perfectly legal, and illegal to do, can someone also clarify that for me?

I'm a new investor, fresh out of 'basic'. Just finished a 3-day seminar. I've decided I want to start my real estate experience doing wholesale assignments, as a ways of getting my toes wet while still getting out there to gain some insight in how everything works.

My question to the community is, besides the the HML/Private lender, who do I need on my team to get the ball rolling?

Bonus Question: So I'm not a very good at talking, I tend to get nervous. I know it will get better once I'm comfortable and actually know what I am talking about, but in the mean time, what are some things that you do to keep yourself calm when meeting with buyers/seller/potential team members?

Okay, so I am specifically looking to do wholesale (assignment) deals, as a way in. What I mean is that I eventually want to do rehab/fix and flips, but before I dive head first into that I want to get a couple of 'practice' deals under my belt, learn the lingo, the process, the paperwork and such. I feel that a wholesale is a good route to get the knowledge I seek while still earning a profit. Does this make sense? Would you recommend something else?

Fresh out of a weekend 3-day real estate seminar, I am in an interesting position, do I first go out and try and find my perfect team of tax, law, and mortgage atourneys, brokers and the like, or do I first try and find a great deal, and shape my team around that deal? Should I try and find a HML/Private lender and then shape what deals I seek after what they are after? I have many options and I'm honestly lost in the flood. One of the pieces of advice that was given was to go out there and 'just do it' to place an ad that says I buy houses for cash, but I find that a bit wreckless, seeing as I don't even know what makes up a good or bad deal yet...