All Forum Posts by: Ubaldo M Gomez

when I am back from the mean streets of  Real Estate hunting, BP is my source of encouragement tells it like it is with the reality of real estate investing. You will always get disgruntled home owners get mad at you for bothering them. They say things like " how you get my name and number? What you want, get off my property!, Are you a real estate agent, because if you are  gonna kick your arse and many countless other crap. BP podcast guests talk about their experiences  how to approach and friend them nicely because quite frankly most of these home owners are in a bad situation are gonna be mean and take it on you ! 

Hello All,

Aaron requested be his colleague must be something I said on BP impressed him? hehehe. I am snooping around check out what is it he does and says about REI at BP. So far so good Aaron!

Chicago has a lot of old 1900s era buildings called " Grandfather or vintage built" require updates to accommodate to today's living standards. Most 2-4 units have aprox 800-900 sq/ft space tenants  can't bring in too many items. Most out of state tenants coming to work in Chicago bring King size beds are in for surprise their beds can't fit a dresser in these tiny bedrooms. These units also don't have a lot of outlets to accommodate the many smartphones, tablets, PCs and wireless gadgets make up part of every day life for professional white collar workers buy tons of power strip outlets to plug them in  is a fire hazard violates City of Chicago building codes . As an investor coming in buy these properties better have cash for upgrades and repairs or better yet,  do a total gut rehab. Most of these units that I have seen in my years investing in the Ukraine , Wicker Park and East Village areas have been converted to duplexes, meaning top and bottom units combined to add more space and rents are tripled to cover the cost of upgrades. So there you have it. Come to Chicago and invest, better have tons of cash to start  or go South side where buildings are newer  60s or 70s era built have more living space in not so good neighborhoods. Bottom line though is Chicago has a lot to offer for investors and there are deals but come at a cost for upgrades and repairs. 

When I saw the pink was like wow! It has a strong color brightens up the room very well and the black borders just stand out giving the streamline of that bathroom a spic and span retro look. My opinion on this is if we are investors to make money on our investment properties should not be spending on cosmetics or upgrades. This bathroom looks intact with no flaws as far as I am concerned from the picture. Leave it alone for the renters to enjoy ( preferably  the ladies ). If you bought the property to live in it, then yeah go ahead and break your piggy bank for a wild and crazy rehab. 

You the man, er the LADY! 

Congratulations so inspiring to see a first timer do the buy and flip.

We as investors don't care if a RE bubble is eminent. All we care is the property has a tenant covering the mortgage and generating cash flow at the same time. Simple as that !

Have you tried 1800sellnow.com ? They have cash buyers all over the country.

Hope that helps

1. Interesting that this topic is even brought up. I recently was at a IT training stating that the job labor market is not doing good but the the needs of IT skills is in demand many people in this country don't have a lot of IT skills and it is the labor market that is hurting right now. Everything is automated in factories,homes,hospitals and businesses don't need labor workers as much as brightly IT skill set minds are in demand and because we don't have those types of individuals, the country is looking at foreigners to come in and do the job of IT at a very cheap rate is affecting the IT employees get the adequate rate. So the bottom line here is that there is not going to be a difference of an outcome to the data for wage increase in March spruce up economic prosperity in this country.Until the job labor market is trained with technology skills, we will see a positive economic outcome. We need IT skills for those labor workers to get educated learn something about computers, network service, switches ,routers and telecommunications because we are in the future where everything is Automated. Technology is at play in the palm of our hands using our cell phones. Yes, a smartphone basically controls our lives is automating everything for us to check in the security of our homes, emails and monitor if all our sensors in our cars is functioning correctly. It's amazing how the smartphone has evolved into what it is now, a remote command center. Real Estate investors carry them have no idea what they could do to check on their properties from far away using WiFi cams connected to their smartphones through the internet.The need of IT workers that are skilled to help these real estate investors understand and use their smartphones to automate and make life easier for tenants and property managers or even other investors trying to run business as smoothly as possible should be accounted for. I hope this helps clarify the effects of our current economy could be better if we as REI's support a Labor market be IT skilled.

Hello Colby,

I am sitting in my car writing you this because my cell phone alerted me a BP needs advice, so I pulled over. If you have money to burn then start small with, yes blue collar work homes under 200K. Look for 10-20% down deals for in this case a 200K home will need a 20K - 40K down to purchase and the rest of your cash could be used for repairs on that home you are going to invest in. Now if you have no need to use any of your cash, I recommend finding other investors that have CA$H willing to help give you a jump start and go find them. Due to BP policy  we are not to spam or solicite, I am going ask you go to Google and look up Kent Clothier has a database of CA$H buyers all over the country with their names and addresses to contact. Get in on that database. I am sure there are some in that database for your area in Los Angeles, Califras are CA$H buyers.

Happy Project Managing Investing!!

Good points fellas but I will have to give kudos of a creditismo to Joe Villeneuve for clarifying that we as REI's need to be educated no matter what, otherwise we become the " you don't know what you don't know" . It is ok to be negative and a criticizer at some point because it will get you positive feedback from other successful REI's know what they already know are willing to share their experiences and later exchange personal information about themselves can lead to goodwill. Thanks guys for sharing.

Happy Investing!