All Forum Posts by: Benjamin K.

What do you guys know about modular homes? Is it a great alternative to stick-built? I feel like if I bought a small amount of land somewhere where it's cheap and have a modular home assembled there, it could save tons of money and be a great investment. Especially if I didn't try to customize it in any way, and got one of the sort of standard, mass-produced one-size-fits-all ones...

Do you guys know, is the financing any different? With the cost of a septic system, electrical, etc., is it still way cheaper than a stick-built ones? I feel like these modular homes could sort of be the future...especially in some developing area, or perhaps overseas. Please, give me your thoughts. 

Does anyone here have experience with the Ben Lomond area of Santa Cruz county? 

Hi, I was wondering what I need to know/where I should look to find a house/land where I could legally grow large amounts of outdoor marijuana, because my friends and I are trying to start a business. Does anyone know... What kinds of restrictions are involved? What should I be aware of? I'm preferably trying to find a 3-4bedroom house in the Santa Cruz County or just outside of it, maybe towards Watsonville or maybe more north towards Ben Lomond area...Ideally the property has at least one acre of land on it, and is reasonably secluded. Any suggestions/knowledge about the topic would be great. Thanks a lot! 

I agree, we need a specific, long-term plan with numbers and attention to detail. We'd need to all meet up first...

Questions: what is CapEx?

What is a potential legitimate exit strategy? What is the best way people usually flip a house? How do you guys successfully flip houses, what do you do? Yeah that's the one, on Braniforte.  That's awesome that you're in the area and familiar with the property, if you could ever talk on the phone that'd be great, as I said, I'm interested in getting into the real estate game in the area. Anyways, WHY, in your opinion, have all the investors passed on it so far? I feel like it's a good area and price. 

To everyone: what would you guys recommend as a first investment? How does someone in my position get started in real estate? How did you guys get started? 

Much appreciated 

@Brian C.

No I appreciate the honesty, really. I am a total novice in this game, so I need to hear some harsh realities. As for your points...

1. We would probably put it down in our parents name(s). There's no way a bank would lend that money to us. One of our dads is investing about 50k, we'd ask for a loan with his name and my best friends dads name. 

2. As for the mortgage; my dad currently pays for my rent while I'm in school, and he's agreed to put the money he would be spending on rent towards the mortgage. So that's 1300/month for the next 15 months. After that, I'd be working full time and my income would increase significantly; to around 4,500 a month. Then we would divide the rest of the mortgage between the other 3 of us

As for long-term exit strategy...we're not totally sure. That's where it's somewhat unclear, which we'd have to talk about before doing anything. We're based in Santa Cruz, by the way, where housing prices are astronomical. We all plan to live there for a few (roughly between 1-6 years, or more, were really not sure), and then probably move out as we go on with our lives, and sell it. So you're right, in a way it's not really an investment; were buying a house to live in it, until the time is right and we can sell it. That part is still pretty unclear, and we'd have to discuss it extensively. 

If any of us leave for any period of time, we rent out our room. Rent is easily 1200-1300 in Santa Cruz; getting 3600-3900 a month off the house would be no problem when we moved out, and we could do that indefinitely. Because there will always be students looking for housing in Santa Cruz; as I said, there's an over abundance of students, and UCSC keeps admitting more and more students each year. 

As for dividing up the money; that's where we'd have to get specific with percentages. We don't really have that figured out yet. Everybody else who's potentially in on this plan is currently in Thailand, so I'd have to wait til they get back to discuss it. We could potentially have it until the optimal time to sell it, whenever the market is high. 

Thanks a lot for the advice and concern, I appreciate it. If you have any follow-up advice, considering what I just said, that would be greatly appreciated, too. Thanks 

Great, thanks for the response!

Hi everyone...this is my first post on this website. I'm 20 years old, totally unfamiliar with the world of real estate but eager to learn how it works. Right now I have about 20k and I'm making about 1800 a month. I'm looking to potentially buy a house with my best friend, a very savvy, enterprising kid who's 22. He just finished college. He took some class on real estate and got a license. He also studied economics, and he's extremely good with people and negotiation. I'm certain he'll find some way to get rich. He's also trustworthy and generous; we've know each other forever. Anyways, he's scrapped up about 150k in investment money, split between 50 of his and 100 of friends and family friends. We've been looking around at houses to potentially buy, fix up, live in, and sell (we're not sure for how long we'd live there or when we'd sell it, just whenever the time is right.) We found a 3 bedroom one bath for 500k. I contacted some agent, and he said there's a septic problem which he estimates will cost 37k to fix. I feel like this is probably sort of a low ball estimation. Anyways, the house looks pretty ideal from the pictures I saw, and at a phenomenal price, when compared to similar houses in a similar location. Most of the similarly-sized houses in that area are going for around 700k. The location is great; it's about 10 mins away from college campus and downtown. It's right next to a creek and a big park, and close to an elementary school. The school system in my city is great. It's an extremely expensive place to live because it's a desirable place to live. Housing prices in my city are outrageously high, which, as my father explained, is good and bad, as the housing market could continue to soar or it could crash...anyways, there's an overflow of students looking for housing, which the University can't handle. Thus there should be a reliable influx of students eager to rent out our house, should we decide to rent it out or move, in the future. In the meantime, we would be living there with a couple other friends (whose money makes up the 170k down payment we would have). 

So...it looks like a potentially very lucrative and worthwhile investment. Mortgage would cost around 2300 a month. We could easily come up with that. I would be paying a lot of the mortgage because I'm actually making the most per month, and eager to invest it in something lucrative. The other kids would contribute, and we would rent out rooms whenever someone has to leave for a while, and the long term plan is to rent it out/live on it for a few years or whenever is a good time to sell it, and then sell. I read online that a "fixer-upper" house is one of the best ways to make money in real estate. We would fix the septic system, and maybe install a new bathroom. It's worth noting that the house sits on a 10, 000 sq foot lot, so there's plenty of room to garden or potentially build more rooms for students, even a whole separate outhouse type thing, to rent out...

My questions to the community: why is the house going for so low? What's the catch? It was built in the 1930s... What should I watch out for? And what kind of stuff could go wrong? My dad, who is conservative in every aspect of his life, thinks I should invest iver the long term in mutual funds, but this is way more sexy and exciting, and I'd get to do it with my friends. He thinks of there is such a great deal, some experienced contractor would have pounced on it already. Also, do you guys have any other suggestions for how I could invest money? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.