All Forum Posts by: Arianne L.

Hi Brian,

Welcome to BP! It's definitely a great resource so just continue reading the forums, blogs and podcasts. You'll come across a lot of great stuff!

When I read your post, I found your reasons in achieving financial independence similar to my own. I work in the healthcare industry and while it is a great profession and I get to help a lot of people, I can't imagine starting a family while working such a schedule.

I started with a high student loan debt at 7% interest and I quickly paid that off because refinancing wasn't an option for me. I pretty much still lived how I lived in undergrad and grad school (very frugally), and was able to pay it off in half a year.

If you can refinance at a lower rate, say 2-4%, that's a good option too so you can leverage your cash in real estate investments that make 10% or more. If it stays at 8% though, I would just pay it off as quickly as possible. 

Do you have any capital saved up already? Once my husband and I paid off my student loans, we started just saving for a few months and eventually had enough to use as a downpayment for a property. We just had an offer accepted for a fourplex yesterday that should give us 11% cash on cash return (around $600 a month in cashflow), with room to raise rents in the next year and achieve close to 16% COC. We're also paying ourselves to do the property management, so that gives us some more cash to work with.

Our 5 year goal is to achieve $6k/month in cashflow from rentals. 

Now, we're also actively looking for a rehab/flip deal to grow our pool of capital.

Thank you all for the warm welcome. We've submitted a few offers but haven't quite gotten one yet. Hopefully sometime soon though!

@William Allen

Thanks! My husband and I are planning to attend the next PIG meeting in Pensacola so we might see you there. I hear that it's much bigger than the Destin/FWB group. 

@William Allen

We told the realtor that we wanted to make two offers on two separate multifamily properties. Our agent pretty much refused to make one offer, and said that the listing agent blew up on him when he gave the verbal and said not to submit the offer. I believe that we had the right to submit an offer, and isn't it the agents' job to be the "middlemen"? I feel like in this scenario they were more like "gatekeepers" and closed the door between the seller and us. In the end, we decided not to put in the offer through the realtor/s, but we are now pursuing a direct mail approach to contact this specific seller. 

He agreed to make the second offer on the second property. So we went through a contract, and have received a counter to our offer. We submitted the offer on Friday, and received an email from him today regarding the counter. He is at least prompt with this one. I will further update on what happens. 

Thank you for sharing your own experiences regarding agents in our area. In light of our recent experiences, I am now strongly considering getting my own license for the same reasons you mentioned. It would be great not having to wait to see a property and being able to actually submit offers! Do you mind sharing how long it took you to obtain your license and how much annual costs are? I've seen a wide range in terms of costs, from 1k annually to 5k

From a quick look at the duplex beside it looks like a 700 rent for each side . Calculate the actual costs and deduct from gross income it'll give you a better idea. 

@Matthew Jarrett

Hi Matthew! Welcome to BP! My husband and I are new investors in the area and are actively looking for our first deal. Primarily looking for buy and holds but also considering flips. There is a RE group that meets up in Pensacola and Destin every month called the Professional Investors Guild. We've found it to be a great resource. 

@Nelson M. Ah yes my mistake in my rushed calculation. Sorry, ignore the previous post about the cap rate.

Are property taxes and insurance included in your PITI? I don't see them mentioned. Also, are you including Pest control, termite inspections, lawn care (if there is one) and garbage disposal (that may be included in utilities) in your calculations? These are some things that we initially didn't account for.

Right now, with the offers we are submitting, we are expecting 150 per door with room to increase rents and make 200 per door. Since the properties we are looking at have been on market for a long time, we are offering lower than list price and hope to negotiate from there.

Hi,

We are in the market for a small multifamily (4 plexes) in our area. We factor in property management at 10% even though we will most likely pay ourselves that 10% to really get a grasp of how good the deal is. We also factored in a higher vacancy rate of 8.33% which is about a month since we are starting out and want to be very conservative. 

Your anticipated 380 cashflow seems pretty low for the price you are paying for the property. that is $4560/year which is a 2.5% cap rate. Personally, if my analysis showed that without property management factored in, I would not take the deal. However, I am currently not thinking of potential appreciation. If you think you'd make money off the appreciated value over a few years, sure. But if it's purely a cashflow investment you're looking at, I would keep looking or offer a price where the numbers are more in your favor.

Thank you all for taking the time to answer and add something to the discussion. Being a newbie, it's great to hear from people who have a lot more experience in the industry.

@Jonathan Makovsky 

I do not have an exclusive so at least I wouldn't have to worry about that if it ends up that this realtor isn't the best fit. 

Thank you for your input. I can definitely relate to the frustration of finding good parts of my "team", which right now is pretty much a big work in progress. However, I will not let this stop me reach my goals. I am hopeful that I'll be posting a success story soon, learn through expereince and be able to contribute more to the community!

@Kelly N. 

Yes, I do think that we need to talk about certain expectations. The first week we talked to him, he was more prompt. In fact that was when he showed us those 4 SFRs. However, after that, it seems that business has picked up (a friend of mine is closing a house with him soon, and I know from social media that he has two other on contract), and we are no longer a priority. While I totally understand that I am not a priority from a financial standpoint, I believe that returning a call and committing to a timeline is the professional thing to do.

Thank you for sharing your own experiences regarding writing offers and getting accepted. Congratulations on your recent purchases!  One day, (hopefully soon) I'll be able to share some success stories as well!

@Russell Brazil

I definitely would never want to make enemies out of anyone. The reason I asked on BP is so I could get a wider range of insight into my situation, so I greatly appreciate your input. I will continue to try and communicate. Once he actually returns my calls, which I hope is tomorrow, I plan on discussing our expectations of each other and hopefully submitting those offers.

@Ana Marie B.

When we first started working with each other, his response time was well within 24 hours. However, after that first week, it has been more than 48 hours, and there have been times when he would say that he would do something, and then never do it. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and as I said earlier I'll discuss specific expectations and hopefully submit those offers. If we do decide to part ways, then I at least know that we tried our best but he just isn't the best fit for our current investment goals.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm glad that you were able to find a realtor that got the job done. Congratulations on your out of state purchase! 

Hi, thank you for taking the time to read my post. I am a new investor and am eager to get my first investment property. Looking mainly at 1-4 unit multifamily buy and holds, but also considering SFRs and flips.

I have been working with a Realtor (who was referred by a friend/coworker). He has shown us around 4 properties (SFRs) and has been in contact with listing agents of multifamily listings. We found all the properties on the MLS. He went out of town for a week and another realtor from his office showed us a few multifamily properties. We expressed on Sunday that we want to place offers on two four-plexes. The 2nd realtor said that they would have a meeting on Monday (yesterday) about these and the original realtor would get back to us.

We tried contacting him yesterday and today and have only gotten through to voicemail. We really want to at least put in an offer on these properties, as we are eager to get started. If they get accepted, great. If not, then we can move on to other prospects. I greatly appreciate the time that the realtor has spent with us, but I hate to say it, the communication feels way too slow. I may lack experience, but I feel that one day can mean the difference between getting a deal and losing it. 

We are offering significantly less on these two properties than list price, but they are the numbers that work on our buy and hold analysis, at around 7-8% cap rate. Could it be that the realtor feels that they are unlikely to accept the offer and it's not worth the time? While I agree that there is a big chance they won't accept it, I would still like to try. Is this an unreasonable expectation?

Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Hello BP members!

My husband and I are aspiring real estate investors in the Florida Panhandle area, we live in Fort Walton Beach. We are currently looking for our first few single family rentals or a multifamily rental in the area. Actively started the process of physically looking at potential investment properties that look on paper but haven't quite found the right one(s) yet! Our goal is to have 3 single family rentals in the next 12 months with around 10% cap rate. Very excited to get started in real estate investing and also to network with BP members.

I want to thank everyone at BP for all their contributions. I've been listening to podcasts, reading all the "how to" guides, ebooks, blog posts and forum posts and have been amazed at the wealth of information available. I am eager to learn and would love to be able to contribute to the discussions as well.