All Forum Posts by: Bishoy Girgis

Hey BP

so im a canadian resident and i own a property in SWFL in cape coral worth about 200k, it is fully paid off so no liens or mortgage or anything.

Im looking to refinance it to pull out my cash and move to another project and just rent this out, I called the bank of america and they told me they could give me 50k or something line of credit with 19% interest secure with my house but thats obviously not what i want at all. I was just wondering if i could go about this a different way or if the person i talked to at the bank didnt understand what i wanted.  She also told me i cant refi my property as im not a US citizen which i dont know is true or not but anywho let me know what you guys

Thanks

Hey BP, 

so heres my situation, im an investor from canada and invest in florida....I only do flips and i buy the properties all cash. Ive recently read a few of the books from bp and other sources regarding the BRRRR method and was wondering how/IF this would be possible for me.

So if i own a property in florida and its worth lets say 200K at the moment and ive bought it all cash, would the bank allow me to refinance it or would i have to be american? and if they do how much would it be normal of them to give me like 70% 50% of the appraised value etc any and all information would be helpful ESPECIALLY regarding the fact im not an american?? 

Thanks in advance 

Hey @Cody Breunig First of all welcome

You are going to first of all want to get all your funding in place, then go out and find the right deal yourself  (zillow) or through an agent, you want either a house to fix up and rent or a house thats ALREADY being rented or has low quality finishes inside and hence can serve as a rental property.....You want to search up all the renting prices in the area that you want to invest in to see how much you are going to get....you may want to use some general rules of at least 1 percent income per total cost of the home so 100k should get u 1k in rental per month calculate the taxes vacancy all the incorporated costs (which you can easily find tones of info if you search rentals in the search box), read the book on rental property investing here its pretty good. 

Im an investor in Cape coral so not far from you

 best of luck find the right deal man

Hey @Anne M. Majority of homes if not all in very good areas double in prices every 10 years (US and Canada)....So if you had the ability (70k wouldnt be enough) to buy a nice home in a very good neighbourhood in 10 years i would bet my 2cents that its price would double....this would be you buying a house and forgetting about it not renting it out or anything just leaving it so half the time of the stock market, not bad IMO (from a pure investment stand point)

Hey @Samantha M. welcome to BP

Im assuming if you were an agent, you know the prices per sqft etc and can evaluate them in whatever area you are thinking to invest in...So if you are trying to flip houses you probably want to aim in the area of 30% less per sqft. so if its running for 100 bucks and you can get the house for 70/75 bucks....put in some repairs moving your price to 80 bucks and then selling for 95/100 you are making 15/20 dollars a sq foot which is basically 15/20%.  You really want to learn costs of bathrooms/kitchens/flooring/painting/landscaping which are the basics really that you most likely will need to do in any flip (hopefully you wont need to do all of them lol) get a feel/ask around/search up plumbing and electircal complications as they are the ones that are hidden costs and usually expensive and then eat up all your profit (best flips are the ones that just need cleaning/painting and are an easy 10% in 2 months so look for those if you can)

Buy and hold properties to rent out are a little different as you want to get low quality floors/kitchens (cheap) to simply rent out for long term generation of income and then eventually renovate, you probably wont want/might not have time to renovate and want to get the cash rolling so look for properties already with tenants because you start off on the right tract without needing to do anything....Not sure about funding really since im an all cash buyer sorry

Hope that kinda helped lol

Best of luck investing

@Lillie MAnon I would highly advise against financing a condo in another country that is a 3rd world because yes 100 percent it is a possibility that the builders take your money and leave mid construction those countries are all about short term hustle, grab what you can and run type of thing (just a different mentality/culture) 

Happened to someone i know in costa rica

Another major problem is that usually the whole building isn't bought out and the builder has some units....You then end up competing against the builder for rent and when you try to sell, and as you can probably figure you wont beat the builder.

Also yes if they are able to open up your american credit and cross reference it with your ID and finance you it based on that then it will show up on your american credit, I cant tell you 100% for DR but i know that for other central american countries that offer that 

Hey @Joel F. Extremely interesting post...awesome investing somewhere else as a form of retirement (im looking at costa rica)...IF you invest as a foreign investor does the country give you any perks such as residency or a DR passport 

As for the post....would it be rented out to international travellers/vacationers or would it be rented by long term DR residents?  Another of the concerns is what @Andrew Michael about the country being able to seize your assets over night, does you owning the property like you mentioned mean that there is no way they can take it from you...because they could not allow you to rent it out if you get to keep it virtually making it worthless right, its crazy how things like this work in less developed countries (had a country without naming hold a family friends 6 million dollar mansion and not allow them to sell to international buyers over night)

Also whats the management costs like there is it the same 10/15%? 

Love to hear what happens in the future or be perhaps involved, love DR but haven't had the chance to go yet

Costal Home inspectors.... http://www.coastalhomeinspectors.com/

They are amazing Ive recently begun working with them after a buyer used them to inspect the flip i was selling...i just bought a property and they did the inspection....136 pages. Basically got every single fine detail of the house both good and bad never seen an inspection company as through as them and they charge like 300/350. Also if you talk to them they have some plumbing and electrical guys that they know that can even work with you if you want or give you rough estimates.

love the banter on BP haha, as for @Keyanna Bell i would not recommend you buy your own home/ get it as it becomes a liabilty and limits ur borrowing power as @Thomas S. mentioned above, as he said you should also DEF invest if you have some money to do so instead in less costly places ie. hamilton. But also you need to figure out which type of REI you want to do like flips (id advise against this here in our local market) or rentals (im a fan) or something else like commerical etc but obv you are just starting so stick to the less complicated stuff (being a landlord)

Best of luck though in your journey though and just post when you got a question 

@Heather M. That feeling of selling a product that you may or may not feel 100 percent about i feel comes with a lot of the aspects in REI, I think you deff should not invest big money ie.(thousands of dollars) into anymore learning since you hate it. I think you should not do anything you ever feel uncomfortable with that being said i think its a fine line between difficult and uncomfortable if you know what i mean...Perhaps stick through it to make a bit of money just to get you on the right foot (since you are already into a deal) and then stop after?

Best of luck finding what works for you