All Forum Posts by: Benjamin DuPont

I'm a small-time owner. I have 11 doors. For 7 years I have had great success with my rentals.

This month, I filed the starts of an eviction. It was the first one I've ever submitted to courts. Tenant ghosts me and I started the process.. I get stories of how she's in a bad place and so sorry....I felt bad for her....ive been trying to help her and find services and here we are at the end of the month

..... and then I found her instagram.... .she's not poor or struggling...she moved into some luxury new apartment. Shes posting bragging photos at the new place ... She left my whole place junked, ruined and filled with tons of crap furniture and rotting food and garbage. 😢

I really am so angry and feel totally tricked..at this point I just want to finish the eviction but I wouldn't even know how to finish it since I don't know where she's at to have her served.

Not sure what to do but be angry. Looking for any advice or cooler heads than mine.

Thanks

-Ben

Orlando - Florida

I owned one of those for a bit. Did STR with it too. Not all units in there are the same value, not even close... so keep that in mind when you are choosing one. If you are planning on financing it, with current interest rates, I would think it would be a bad choice. Covid blew up the STR market for a bit and slow seasons can get tough...so you need to make plenty to have reserves built up and then also have LTR as a backup plan to cover cost basis. Feel free to reach out if you want to chat about it. Best of luck

@Ben Jamin

I too was thinking of going this route. Following thread!

Listening to BP podcast recently they mentioned a way to help tenants and report rent collection to the Credit companies.  I have not been able to find good posts on it here, or any solid suggested ways on the web.  So I was wondering if anyone could suggest?

Thanks,

Ben -Orlando Investor

@Daniel Pitner

That is a good start, see if you can lower your expenses and then follow the house hacking method. To answer your other question of how to do it, i would say you need to build equity into your places.

I focus on places that need work and i put in the blood/sweat/tears. The goal is to be able to refiance after my first few deals and pull out money that i can then drop back into the next deal.

Ive only been going for a few years but if you want to connect feel free to shoot me a message or add me on the IG. Best of luck with the journey!!

@Daniel Pitner.

4000 is very achievable. You can easily go above that as well.

There are several posts on here about the "Golden number" which is where people get away from their w2. You probably wont fully retire in the sense of never working again, but perhaps just become full time investors.

What you should think aboht is the compounding finances. If you get $4000 a month coming in (48k) yearly cashflow...then what will you be eligible for purchasing through lenders.

I would say set that aimpoint higher⬆️⬆️. There is no reason you dont go for 10 units in 10 years or more. Once you get a few under your belt, you will be able to buy larger or more units every year. 10k a year cashflow by 35 can be 20k by age 40.

Its your book, write the story how you want.

Best of luck,

-Ben

Hey everyone!

I am trying to figure out how best to renovate my property for the best options of refinancing and getting money back out.

My Duplex I own I bought for $230,000. It appraised at $220,000 but I was willing to pay a bit more to make it work as the cash flow is good here in Orlando Florida!

I was thinking about putting about $10000 in per side (doing my own work) to do some updating to make the place a little nicer so i can raise the rents (Currently $1050 but i want $1200 eventually).  I also want to try to refinance the place so i can pull out some of my cash to use on future down payments on properties.  

So the main question is what will an appraiser/bank be looking for so that i can refinance at the highest value and get my cash back out of this place?  Im hoping i can get the value of the property upwards of 240-260k and pull out some of that equity for future down payments. 

*What are the hot items I should renovate to make the place worth more? 

*Is my plan to reno, reappraise, and refinance going to work? will banks be willing to give me 100% value refinance or do i have to settle for 70%

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as i'm still so early in my career trying to figure this stuff out.

Thanks

-Benjamin DuPont

Hey Forums,

I've been amped up. I'm power-housing knowledge, analyzing deals, making strong connections to people who get things done and I've done it all while deployed with the military for the last 7 months. I thought things were going swimmingly with a multifamily property Duplex (SFH 3/2 with Studio 1/1) all my numbers were showing awesome potential for my first property. So we came to an agreement on the the prices, and started all the normal contracting that I went through with my agent back in Orlando. I put my escrow in and felt like at this point momentum was moving, and should be clear to make it to the table.

I paid for the inspections on the house, and on the septic system, as it was a bit older.  These inspections came out to $680 for Inspections and $250 for septic inspections.  

So $930 put into inspections, not terrible...but then the unexpected comes along.  Hurricane Irma comes along and blows the roofing off the place.  Water gets inside, its a mess in one of the rooms.  Im a million miles away, and get that fun phone call.  

Obviously I can buy conventional loan with the place all torn to sh*t, which I had hoped to do. The sellers say they cannot afford to repair, they will wait for insurance payout, and tell me they will be taking the place off market in the meantime.

!!!!   I started getting creative, decided to proposition them for a MASTER LEASE option (Thanks BRANDON TURNER "How I bought my home with low and no money down") Follow me on this one... They contract to sell -ONLY- to me for the next 6 months, I pay/do the renovations (family willing to help, and they are super handy) and then move people in right away instead of waiting months for the place to get fixed, start making cash flow fast!  Then I can buy the place comfortably, all the rents are coming to me in the meantime.

Great idea right?! Nope sellers back out and say they don't want to sell anymore, not giving any other reason than they want to wait to repair and assess.  

 So I'm requesting that they pay for the invoices...i'm not real sure if I can do that, but it doesn't seem like the Seller is held to much.  I'm not giving up, back to finding property, but Orlando is rough right now for investment property.  Any similar stories, advice or encouragement would be great, I am trying this forum thing out for the first time and figured I could share my story to you.  

Semper Fidelis

-Ben

Mr Williamson is right,

Cameras, although much more advanced than in the past, also are very limited on what you can actually see.  I have 4 on a single family home, and it still leaves a ton of open area that cannot be viewed.  Also night recording and landscape is vital, just like he said.  

-->>> An additional piece of advice I thought of after my post, was that you should get a aerial photo of your property.  Print it out on paper, and do what I call a " terrain sketch ".  Identify your <Avenues of Approach> .  Identify where your <blind spots>  are.  Identify where your <Power> locations are.  

Extend out your Vision \  / Left and right lateral limits  and realize anything outside of them will not be on camera, and the further out you go the more degraded it will be.  

Cheers.

Hey Nathan, great inspiration.  Its awesome to see someone start so young into the game and keep driving.  I am late to the party at 30 and wish I would have started 10 years ago myself.  Good luck with things!