All Forum Posts by: Andrew Reis

Hi Andrew in Boston, MA-

You have a 3 family or tri-plex outside of Boston. You are looking at acquiring your next investment property and wonder how other investors save up the downpayment for the next property.

Great question and congratulations on building your portfolio!

The first place to look is the equity in that property or another property you may have which you can refinance out to use as a downpayment on the next property.

If you do not have equity yet, you could look for an equity partner or private lender.

Or, since you are considering other streams of income, consider getting your real estate license and help other investors do what you do and save up for your next downpayment that way.

To Your Success!

@Andrew Reis

Hi Andrew — you're right, in high-cost markets the challenge is often preserving cash for the next purchase rather than finding the property itself. A few approaches I've seen work well: partnering with other investors to pool down payment funds, using BRRRR strategies to recycle capital from existing properties, and focusing on deals that generate strong cash flow from day one to build reserves faster. Networking locally and building relationships with wholesalers can also give you access to off-market deals without overpaying. Even in expensive markets, being disciplined with underwriting and cash management usually beats chasing uncertain side hustles.

 Here's what we did= Flip, Flip, Hold.  You'll have to run numbers to determine target numbers for flip including timelines but in the beginning we found it faster to do it this way than savings from a W2.

Just chiming in to say you're not alone!  Can totally relate to this here in North Jersey.  Many people say the first property is the most challenging, and in some ways the learning process is; but really I find saving+scaling into property 2+ to be more challenging in many ways.

PM will take a long time to save money as it's not a high paying gig, wholesale requires a lot of upfront time and effort and you likely wont see the yield for 6+ months, the market is too challenging right now for flip imho. I think if you have resources to fundraise with friends and family to co-invest in some long term investments that might be the way to go. You can also look to re-fi on the existing loan if you have a higher rate to get out some money and/or reduce your monthly debt. Hope that's helpful!

@Andrew Reis Real estate investing is a long-term process, just like building up an IRA or 401k - often you have to be patient to get the results you want.

I'd keep building your local network and looking for deals. 
- You might be able to find deals and get a finder's fee to turn them over to your network. Just be sure to check out how to do this legally or at least know the risks if you do it anyways.

Regarding raising funds from family & friends - best way to do it is to "brag" about your success. 

Start posting regularly on social media about how your 3-unit is working out. Don't whitewash everything though and avoid the negatives. Share your failures, but share what you learned from them and how they've made you a better investor. Maybe target 80% positive with 20% positive-spin negative.

You can also start posting about the deals you're finding and what makes them attractive. 

If you want to warm-call family & friends, NEVER directly ask them to invest or for money!

It's less uncomfortable for you & them to present your latest deal and then ask who they may know that may be interested. If they are interested they can always, "refer themselves"!

If you'd like to chat about other strategies DM us to schedule some time.

Good luck!

@Andrew Reis oh no, I am sorry to hear that. I have been through that before and it really does make it tough. Do you work in an industry that will be hard to get another job or will you be able to get back into something relatively quickly? 

@Andrew Reis could you guys settle for one more house hack before finding that single family? Or maybe get a bigger single family and rent the extra rooms? Getting a second property for cheap is going to set you up for the future well. It gives you a chance to fully rent the first property without immediately draining all those savings into your new single family payments. Also, with two properties appreciating and hopefully cash flowing, getting the third will be the easiest purchase yet. 

I'm in the north shore and the only way I was able to get into the second duplex was by house hacking. Agreed man it's hard to save 20-30% on a 800k+ home. 

I personally wouldn’t start a side hustle until I've exhausted most other methods for raising funds. I’d definitely try people I know first. But that’s just me.