All Forum Posts by: Brenden Mitchum

Hey @Aaron W Cary, welcome to the BP community!

Someone hinted at this above, but might be worth looking into house hacking or a combo of house hacking and BRRRR. I only say this because BRRRR can be a very capital, time & knowledge intensive strategy. You will need a lot of at least one of those things, likely all three for your first one. Building a fantastic team will certainly help lessen the burden but again, that takes time and knowledge.

House hacking on the other hand can really be as difficult as you want it to be. If you have lots of free time and want to get more experience and better returns, buy something that needs some work and fix up one side. Move into that side and start fixing up the other side before you rent it out. Refi 6+ months later. Move out in a year and do it again. The easier, less time intensive version is to buy something more turnkey and cut out much of the rehab portion of the strategy. 

Lots of options on house hacking and you can get fantastic low-down loan products (granted the property is in good enough condition). This is the no-brainer strategy for someone who has the option to move to any market.

Don't get me wrong though, BRRRR is an awesome strategy. I'm just suggesting you get set up in a market with a house hack since it's easier and requires less capital/energy (usually). As you learn the market better and build your team, you can then more easily begin BRRRRing!

Hope this helps a bit. Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Hey @Brandon C., welcome to the BP community!

Your best bet to determine ADU laws for a specific municipality is to call the zoning and planning department. Someone there should be able to tell you exactly what is and isn't allowed.

Hope this helps a bit. Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Hey @David D., welcome to the BP community!

I'd be happy to recommend a couple property managers that my previous clients have been really happy with. I will say that in the past year I've made a switch from general investment clients to specifically co-living clients. So, my clients have not had use of these traditional PMCs and I'm not fully up to date with their operations. However, last I checked, one was small and the other medium sized and both very customer service focused with reasonable fees. 

PM me anytime and I'll get you their contact info.

@Gabriel Spaulding I mentioned two specific books above! ^^^

Hey @Amanda Rose

A pure finders fee where the lead is simply passed your way would typically justify .5%-2%. I would say it depends how good of a deal it is an how generous you're feeling. If another agent sent me a purchase lead for one of my clients, I would give them half a point out of my commission. However, if another investor brought me a personal deal, I'd likely give them 1-2%, depending how hot the lead is.  

This is your friend though so I would say if it's a great deal, it wouldn't hurt to be a bit generous. Maybe you can get them into real estate and they can start helping you source future deals. 

Hope this helps a bit! Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Hey @Cohen Williams, welcome to the BP community!

1. The commonly used abbreviation of "Real Estate" is "RE."

haha just giving you a hard time as that was likely a typo.

Personally, getting your mindset right is the most important. Understanding that the first chunk of time in RE will mostly be education and networking and lots of failed attempts at getting started. This could be for a month or 12 months, just depends how hard you work and how quickly you learn. 

Mindset is huge though because it will help you understand where you're at now and where you want to go. Then you can start filling in the gap with a plan as you learn more about RE. Direction is hugely important in the beginning because it will save you time lost via shiny object syndrome. It will also help you grow and maintain the discipline and persistence needed to be successful in RE. 

So, read some books on mindset to get you started i.e., "The Richest Man in Babylon," "The Millionaire Real Estate Investor," "Think & Grow Rich." "Tribe of Mentors" is also a good one because it shows how successful people think and the habits they employ in their lives.  

And feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions along the way!

Hey @Gabriel Spaulding, welcome to the BP Community!

Oh man, I don't even know where to start! haha

Really, you just need to educate yourself a bit more, my friend. We're here if you have specific questions or still don't understand how something works after looking into it yourself. However, your last questions tell me that you haven't even read a book on investing or property management. Start with Brandon Turner's "Book on Rental Property Investing". He also has one on "Managing Rental Properties." Also, listen to the first dozen or so BP Podcasts (I think there is even a beginner-focused separate podcast now too). 

Even if we simply gave you all the answers now, you would not be ready and you would likely forget them by the time you were. 

You have some very cool ideas but first you need to get the basics down. Slow down and build that foundation. This is not a race and it's certainly not a quick way to make money. Follow the same process we all did starting out and be patient but persistent. Honestly, if you're passionate about real estate, the learning part should be really fun for you and there are plenty of resources out there to help you with this. 

To answer a few of your more specific questions. No, you cannot buy MHP with an FHA loan. You also likely can't build some tiny homes on your SFH zoned land unless the municipality allows it. Create an LLC after you buy. I do not have the answer to your very general question regarding whether to buy a triplex, quad or MHP. Remember, the more info you can provide us in a concise form, the more likely someone might have an answer that helps. Specific, to the point questions get answer more frequently than general, drawn out questions. Help us help you!

And please, feel free to reach out to me anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Hey @Jon Fults, welcome to the BP Community!

Nice job working on this deal - looks like there could be some potential here!

However, just because you purchase two adjacent attached units, does not automatically make this a duplex. Both will still have their own parcel and be zoned and classified as SF. 

I'm not sure if you can get the parcels combined and rezoned as duplex/small MF but that is what you would have to do to be able to sell this as a "duplex." Hopefully these are the only two units attached to each other. If not, you'll definitely not be converting this into a true duplex. If there is an HOA that would also likely prevent this from happening. First place to start is with a call to county/city planning and zoning.

Regardless, you still have two units right next to each other so they should act similar to a duplex, granted there are no other units attached to either. Investors will see that really the only difference here is that they have to pay separate taxes and they would not be able to get MF-specific traditional loans. They can still get a single loan on both properties but it would have to be some kind of portfolio loan. This will likely mean that the units wouldn't fetch as high of a price as if they were a true duplex. 

Hope this helps a bit! Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat.

@Prudhvi Gh No, that link brings you to the Dekalb County tax assessor property search tool. Any property located within Dekalb County can be searched there. This site simply gives you some info on the property. The important part for you is at the top of the page between your parcel ID ("PARID") and the owner name. Here it will say your tax district ("Tax Dist."). If it says "04-Unincorporated," that means you are in unincorporated Dekalb and need the certificate. Anything else means you're in a township and do not need the certificate. 

Feel free to reach out if you're still unsure!

Hey @Prudhvi Gh, welcome to the BP Community!

The certificate of compliance is not something a general inspection would cover. I believe some inspectors do this but you would have had to ask up front. You can double check with them and see if they would come back out to do this or know a plumber who can. Most licensed plumbers can and will do these for a fee. 

The good news is, you can apply for new service without the certificate - just make sure you submit it within 30 days. Here's a link to the application that has this information on it. The important part for you is the "OWNERS" section and of course the application itself.

BTW you only need the certificate if you are in unincorporated Dekalb. If you're within a township, you do not need it. I don't think the link on the form works for checking this but it is fairly easy to do via tax assessor if you're already familiar with searching property records there. 

Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!