All Forum Posts by: Andrew Neal

@Oleg Serdyuk I too feel your pain of living in an expensive market up north in the Bay Area. Something that my wife and I sort of fell into was a live in flip. We got the house we wanted in the town we wanted, made some very minor upgrades and benefited from good ol' fashion California appreciation.

Also if wanting to reduce your risk and exposure on your first BRRRR you could partner with a friend/family member.

Lastly there are some more affordable parts of California or for your perhaps AZ that while long distance may be close enough for at least a few drives to the area to meet face to face with folks and get a feel for the market.

One strategy I have been considering implementing is BRRRR but you create your own LLC and then lend yourself the money. The LLC is the HML in this situation but since you are lending the money to yourself you can avoid crazy high fees. When you go to refinance the bank will pay off that loan and will do so without any seasoning.

The caveat is obviously you need to have the initial cash to pull this off but would greatly accelerate the rate at which you could acquire properties.

@Ryan Nguyen I too have been looking out of state and tend to stick to markets I have personally visited before but that's just my comfort level.

David Greene wrote the book on out of state investing (you can find it here in the store) and he recommends having checks and balances by way of multiple people you can rely on. I personally wouldn't rely solely on an agent because they may just be hungry for a deal. However if you have a PM and contractor you're working with you can get a better more honest feel about a neighborhood or property based on all of their responses.

@Jeff Brower awesome story and great details. I envy people with affordable duplexes or even having them at all!

I used an FHA loan on my first primary home and it ended up being a nice little accidental live in flip.

Has anyone used Unison or other similar type company to pull cash out of their primary residence for investing? They refer to themselves as "investing alongside of you and your home's potential appreciation" I won't go into details about the program and really only did a tiny bit of research when I first heard of them back when I was looking for a primary residence.

Essentially they will give you up to a certain amount of cash without any debt payments in exchange for a percentage of the gain in your home.

My thought was some folks who are looking for cash to invest but don't want to mess with Heloc's etc could use something like this to get the needed cash without adding additional monthly debt. It seems as though you may be kicking the can down the road because eventually these companies will get their money back from you somehow but was curious if anyone has looked into it.

@JaNae Anderson All things David Greene. Especially his episode on the BP podcast (he's now co-host) and offers tons of great tips beyond his book. He focuses on finding what he calls your core 4. Lender, realtor, contractor and property manager.

I am looking out of state for all the same reasons us Bay Area folks do, because it's crazy out here! haha

@matthew 

@Matt Mcnulty I have worked in marketing my whole professional career and would highly recommend Wix.com I'v hosted my personal website with them and built many others in a matter of hours that blow most others out of the water. I think it's something like $16 a month. You can absolutely use one of their templates (they have a ton) and manage it your self.

I set my mom's cookie business up with a wix website that she manages herself at 60 years old so go for it!

I have recently seen some "price cuts" when browsing Redfin in my residential area here in the far East Bay Area but most of those seem to be minor cuts to gain some additional traction to a price that was probably unrealistic in the first place. Sellers still seem to think that the market is the same it was a year ago and it's not. Also buyers seem to be getting more scared because of rates rising and all the headlines about the market getting ready to implode (which it most likely won't). 

I did recently see a home that I toured about 7 months ago when my wife and I were in the market for a primary residence that was a 3/2, 1,650 sq.ft. listed for around $499K and relisted this month for $558K. It will probably sell around that or slightly lower. So the market is still trending up for us but slower.

Everyone should just go to @Andrew Postell's original post from about a year ago since I just read through it and answered all my own questions.

Wow, some great information here. @Andrew Postell thanks for the response and I will dig into your thread. This certainly presents an interesting opportunity since I know delayed financing can have some hoops to jump through.

@Mark Fries interesting that you have also used this in purchasing vehicles.