All Forum Posts by: Brian Legg

Thanks for the responses guys.

@Ali Zantout unfortunately house hacking is not an option for me, but it is a great idea. I wish I had known about 10 years and two houses ago... I just bought my current primary residence just under two years ago, so moving is not an option. Not to mention I have my second kid on the way in July. I am Still young (30) but wish i had started a little sooner and maybe purchased a duplex or something. oh well hind sight is 20/20 i guess. I have yet to check out youtube thanks for the tip! If a book is on the top Amazon, audible, or bigger pockets list it is probably on my radar. 

@Ryan Evans Cleveland is a good area i just need to get the ball rolling... Not sure what to do without capital. I would rather go with traditional financing for my first deal..

Good Luck with house shopping! maybe if you are out here over the summer I can buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain.

Hi! 

I am just getting started out in my real estate investment career... well sort of. I probably wont be ready to buy my first buy and hold for at least a year unfortunately. I need to build up some cash reserves and I am still reading and doing some homework. 

While doing  my research and reading one of the repetitive suggestions is to find a mentor. I plan on heavily relying on this community, but I feel that it would be good to have a go to person as well.

Although I am some time out on my first purchase I want to continue to learn as much as possible and network. So, I am looking for someone that I could help out in exchange for knowledge and experience. I am not really sure what that is... but I am willing to do a little work. 

Now, I do have a full time 40 hour a week W-2 job and a family, so my time is somewhat limited. I have a couple hours after work and some time over the weekends, it would be best for me if I could help remotely some how. 

Let me know if anyone has any suggestions am open to them or would like to take me up on the offer. I live in Cleveland Ohio, but if I could help in some way remotely this person doesn't necessarily have to be in the area.

Thanks! - Brian

Thanks all. I guess I am just excited and eager. Time to save and continue learning.

Thanks for the comment @Brent Coombs

I appreciate it especially since I may not get a lot of input. 

Savings plan........... I have one but not enough to save up for a 20% down payment. If I waited for that i would never get in the game. My wife and make a decent living, but have student loans still, other obligations and a small child with one on the way paying day care, etc. Trust me a budget my money to the penny, but its just not feasible for us right now and i don't want to waste any more time. (we are 30).

I do plan to buy a bargain if i can find one. Thanks again for the insight! I will have to re-evaluate.

Hi.

I am looking for a what would you do in my situation? I am planning on getting my real estate journey started, but first I need some money! I have equity in my primary residents, so I plan to start with that.

I owe about $124k and it should be worth 165 - 175. Zillow says $175, so i assume that is the high end... or really high end. 

I want to get as much equity as I can. My wife is on board with investing, but we have improvements to our own home we need to do, which we would need to also use the HELOC for.

My choices are:

PNC Bank - 5.37% APR. up to 89%. annual fee $50, but waived since I have a qualifying checking. So all said and done assuming 165k appraisal i can get roughly 22k. setting aside a couple grand for my own home improvements.

Key Bank - has a 90-100% option at a rate of 6.76%. plus an annual fee of $50 (not waived). again assuming 165k @ 100% i could get 40k, but at a much higher rate.

What do you think? I would ideally like our first deal to be Multi family with 20-25% down. With PNC i may not have enough credit is my only worry unless maybe i decided to go FHA if that was an option. Key bank's rate scares me that it is almost at a rate of a credit card and i assume it is variable and also assume rates will go up.

I am not really looking for other financing options other than this for my first deal. any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. 

Hi all. I Greatly appreciate all of the info and responses! This community is truly amazing. 

The overwhelming consensus is to go out and buy my first property. I know that taking that first step will be the hardest but once it is made it should hopefully be a snowball effect from there. Trust me I plan to do there is no doubt in my mind. I am not making excuses by all means but I have a full time job, a 16 month old, and a pregnant wife due in July who also works full time. I just made this investment decision weeks ago, so I planned to take this down time in out lives to do my homework and make the plunge after we establish a new normal once the new baby comes. I assume some of you have children. I am not sure if you could imagine juggling this scenario, if you can good for you! But I cannot, at least not till like I said we figure out our new normal. I say this with self managed properties in mind.

If anyone has any other thoughts or comments please let me know!

@Joshua Ryan Meador Sounds great! I definitely want to connect with some people locally. I will probably try to make it to the meet up this month. We can certainly chat soon over email or phone, my email is Balegg7@gmail 

@Chinmay J. Thanks for the tip! You make a good point and I may consider that in the future, but for my first rental I would prefer to stay local and gain more experience and knowledge before investing in other markets.

@Matt Motil Thanks Matt good tip.

@Nick Ferguson Thanks for sharing! That is a bummer about the furnace. 80 years old! that's incredible. I may take you up on the chat offer soon. I need to make some local connections.

@Michael Swan That's Awesome!

@Ivan Barratt Thanks, especially for the book recommendation. I need those right now since I am still reading a lot.

Hi Nathan Platter Thank you! I appreciate the input. The $100 was my minimum that I basically got from Brandon turners rental book and/or the podcasts, I can’t remember. I will make sure to aim for a higher cashflow per door. Thanks again!

Hi!

I am sorry if this is annoying to ask, but I am a complete newbie and for now I am relying on this community to be my mentor. In short i would like to buy my first multi-family rental in the next 6-18 months. With a 16 month old child and one on the way in July I don't see any sooner feasible. Not to mention I am not at all ready, no not analysis paralysis. I have only just begun my homework and made this decision a couple weeks ago.

This is my first pass at my business plan. Please let me know what you think, feel free to critique, and let me know if I am missing any thing that is important. Thanks in advance for your help!

Side note: My wife and I's investment career  will be ran on the side of our full time jobs as supplemental income on our road to financial freedom. 

Real Estate Business Plan

Goal:

In the next 5-10 years buy and hold 8-10 rental properties or until resulting in about $2000 in passive rental income. At minimum $100 cashflow per door. Return on investment to be determined, but COCROI preferably over the stock market average.

Buying our first property within 6-18 months.

What types of Properties will we invest in:

Duplex, Triplex, Quads, to begin. Possibly trading up for small apartment buildings if it makes sense and opportunities are available. Would like to avoid single home rentals due to the hassle of buying, insuring, and managing one unit, but not opposed to it if there is a great opportunity.

Would like to focus on properties that need at least some work to receive a good purchase price. Also, the ability to force appreciate would be preferable to build up some equity.

Where?

Suburbs of Cleveland. More Analysis to come, but while starting out B cities or possibly on the boarder of B/C cities taken case by case.

How?

Down Payment will come from the equity on our primary residence and possibly some cash depending on how much saved. Putting 20-25% down.

This may change as we grow our portfolio.

Financing will be conventional mortgage loan from mortgage companies, at least in the beginning up to the allowable amount.

This will probably change and will explore options when the time comes closer. Portfolio lenders, hard money, and partnerships being a few options.

Property Management:

Initially we plan to manage the properties ourselves, having strict policies in place to make it efficient and easy for us as well as having the right team members. However, property management services will be included into our calculation for when we will want to transition or if we find out that it isn’t something we can do on our own.

What Needs to happen between now and first rental

Order doesn’t matter (except for #1):

• 1.Finish reading, research, and learning
• 2.Build our team
• 3.Network
• 4.Get approved for HELOC
• 5.Pay down credit card debt and build up cash reserves
• 6.Find mentor (may be highly dependent up BP community)
• 7.Practice analyzing properties
• 8.Determine common expenses and dollar amounts
• 9.Get all rental documents
• 10.Find potential deals analyzing 2-3 deals per day till at least 10 are found 

Thanks @Nicole Heasley Beitenman

I look forward to going next month!

Hi All! I am brand spanking new to REI as some of you have seen in the Intro Forum. I do not have my first property yet and probably wont for 6-12 months, but I would love to begging to network. Unfortunate, i will not be able to make it tomorrow due to prior obligations.

How frequent are these meet ups? Hopefully more frequent than not. Also what do they entail? I would like to make it to the next one whenever that may be.