All Forum Posts by: Andrew Russell

Thanks @Jeffrey Holst, I appreciate that advice. We haven't found a bunch of deals that analyze with great cashflow yet. I did find a couple early on, kicking myself for not jumping on them. Won't make that mistake again!

Awesome @John Teachout. I grew up in Grandville. Do you have any properties in the west michigan area?

@Brian Fiorillo, best of luck Brian!

Thanks @Andrew Syrios!! I just watched one of your you tube posts a week ago on rehab estimates, good stuff!!

@Wendy Patton, @Dave Thomson, @Tim Johnson, @Ryan Kuja, @Ehsan Rishat

Thank you all for the warm welcome guys!! Truly appreciated!

Thanks @Jake Thomas! Trying to not be too conservative, to the point where we never make a move, but also dont want to rush into something just to get started and get it wrong.

I'm sure we will learn a ton after the first property is said and done. Just got to get it done!

Hi all!

My wife and I are a couple of newbies from West Michigan (Grand Rapids area). We are ready to turn our desire into commitment and actually get started. Our long term goal is not just financial freedom for ourselves, but a business which can provide generational wealth for our family long after we are gone. In the shorter term, we are still working to find our first deal. Buy and hold rental properties are our focus, but we certainly wont shy away from others given the right situation once we gain a footing.

We've known we wanted to use REI as the vehicle to reach our long term goals for a while, but we haven't really been commited to making that happen until recently (not coincidentally, happens to be about the time we discovered BP!). Definitely wish we would have came here sooner, learning about this BRRRR strategy blew my mind and is absolutely something we will be employing.

We've been watching all the webinars, reading the forums and blogs & listening to the podcasts every day, soaking in all the information so we can learn & grow. Looking forward to having the support of this great community as we make our first deal and every one afterwards.

We have preapproved financing, an agent, two markets & the types of properties we are looking for all lined up and picked out. Currently, we spend about an hour a day analyzing deals in those two local markets. Everything so far has been through our agent & the MLS portal. Just this week we began "driving for dollars" (another stategy we just learned about thanks to BP!) and will be sending out some direct mail to those property owners. We would definitely appreciate any reccomended wholesalers working with the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo areas.

Anyway, it is great to be here, we are looking forward to connecting & growing with this amazing community!

Andrew & Lauren

Hey @Brian Brusich,

I am using Lake Michigan Credit Union for conventional financing. They are pretty good to work with in my experience. Both for primary residence and investment properties.

@Tim Herman

I ran the calculator and created a replication of it in a spreadsheet. That way I could add some functions into it like analyzing the impact if I used a HELOC to fund the down payments and rehab for future buys & some other things. I'll likely go pro anyway though, I really like the PDF view you can create, which is something I don't know how to replace in a spread sheet. I might be blind, but I also don't see where I can attach a screen shot in this reply.

Anyway, that being said, I have 5 properties I am going to check out later today that are close to solid flow at 20% down, just a little short of my cashflow goal per unit. That is why I was asking for opinions on how everyone views flexibility on the downpayment for buy & hold.

@Tim Herman & @Brent Paul,

Thanks guys,

I am using the BP calculators, they are awesome! I should have clarified, this is my first rental property, not my first purchase. My loan is conventional, I'm not looking at house hacking.

I'm also trying to be realistic with myself, I dont have the confidence to grab 8 properties or anything like that. I just want to get one under my belt to gain some confidence and move on from there. I'll come up with financing for the future deals one way or another.

Sounds like I shouldn't entertain going much, If any higher than 20%.

Thanks guys