All Forum Posts by: Brooke Jackson

@Joe Splitrock hey Joe! I saw your reply on an earlier thread and I liked what you said. I see that you invest in SD? I've thought about moving into that market. Any words of advice about investing in that area?

@Pat L. That's incredible! I'd love to get to that point someday! 

@Dennis Wayne I love the idea of buying a mobile home. Do you have any advice? 

@Terrell Garren LOL!!! 

@Nick Giulioni Thanks Nick! How long have you been working in Fishers? I almost bought a property out there. I currently own a duplex in Arsenal Heights Indy

@Michelle Harrington Great! I'm so glad! I hope you the very best!

@Don Konipol Thank you for your kind words! This has been a fun journey and there's much more to come! I'm walking through the $1.5m (appraised value $2.1) house tomorrow. Instead of offering their asking price of $1.5m, I'm offering $1.25M. This will include a $50k non-refundable Ernest money deposit upon signing the contract and I will assume their loan as well as catch up their payments (they are behind on their mortgage). I will also provide them with a 3000 sqft home nearby to live in for free for 12 months. This will give them a place to live, some money to get back on their feet and an opportunity to fix their credit. During that time we will be putting about $100k of improvements into the home (the carpet has pet urine, the walls need to be painted and the appliances are about 30 yrs old). This will cause the property to appraise for $2.4m.  

I will be able to rent the house out as a short term rental, either the entire unit (8800 sqft, 11 bed 6 bath) or the upstairs and downstairs as separate units. 

I'll refinance in 12 months with almost $1M in instant equity and a business that generates $15k-$30k/month as a short term rental. I'll also have an additional property, the 3000 sqft home that the sellers would be living in, to start renting out once the 12 months is up. 

@Katy Scherr Yes! Absolutely! There's lots of helpful resources to go to look for stats on potential growth areas. But first, can you tell me more about your strategy(ies) and I can try to steer you in the right direction? My strategies have changed over time and I am still using a number of them, mostly because each deal is unique and the opportunities are somewhat tailored to the deal. What helped me at first was to learn about several strategies, find the one that resonated best with me and then focus on that avenue. 

My first out of state deal was going to be a flip. I live in Utah and I started contacting all my friends who were involved in Real Estate and picking their brains on what they were doing. I had 2 friends that were investing out of state (OOS). Utah right now is very expensive and I didn't have the capitol or networking to be able to buy something local at the time. My friend in Indy had 40 properties! I talked to him quite a bit and learned that his strategy was to buy smaller properties ($30k-$40k 3bed/2bath) and put $15k-$20k into rehabbing then rent them out free and clear. He never touched the income from the properties (ave $600 per door) and as he started acquiring more properties, the rents started paying for the next buy. I thought that was a great strategy so I booked a flight out to see how he was doing things. We met with a whole seller who was showing us a few of his properties and I saw one that I felt was right. It was $90k cash only and had a hole in the roof as well as electrical problems due to a fire in the attic. I talked to my friend about it and asked if he thought it was a good deal. He said that he liked the deal but that it was out of his league. I thought that was strange, since he had 40 properties! He's also very conservative and doesn't like risk much and he doesn't like changing his tried and proven strategy. I don't mind risk as long as I have a secure exit strategy. I knew that I could relist this house on the market for $101k-$115k without a problem and that I could also resell it and make $50k on a flip so I bought it the next day. 

I bought another one shortly after on the same street with the same intentions. After cleaning it up I didn't see as much potential as the first so I relisted it and made a few thousand dollars. I did this for 2 reasons. The street that I bought these 2 properties on was almost fully renovated and already had great forced appreciation. I also wanted the experience of selling a property without putting a lot of time or money into it, and potentially getting in over my head where I would loose money on the deal. I also wanted to have more experience under my belt because I could get better rates with private/hard money if I had more properties (flipped or holding). 

My strategy has now changed on the fix and flip, and I am now holding it as a rental property.

I soon found a 3rd property that was a completely different strategy in which the best use of the property is as a vacation rental. I started calling people that I knew that had vaca rentals and picking their brains about how to do it. I'm now looking at another property to also have as a vaca rental and depending on how that goes I might stick with that strategy for a while. 

My strategies have changed a lot! But I'm ok with that. This is more of a university education for me right now as I am growing to see what exactly I want to focus my attention on in the future. I'm thinking that I will keep doing vaca rentals and then get into several multi family as well as overseas vaca rentals. 

Let me know if this helped at all and what other questions that you have and I'll see if I can help! 

I started in real estate investing 10 years ago when I bought my first duplex in Lehi Utah. At the time, Lehi will still farm county but was starting to grow. I was living in Brazil at the time and my husband and I were expecting our first child. I wanted to move back to Utah so I started looking for areas that I wanted to buy a house. 

I started by calling the city building and planning committees in a few counties as well as researching the potential growth in the area within the next 5 years. From all that I was seeing, Lehi had great promise and it was expected to triple in size within the next 10 years due to a technology/business boom (Lehi is now referred to as Silicon Slopes in the Tech industry and has in fact tripled in size since I first purchased my property). I decided that I wanted to buy in the area and I found an ugly under valued house that had a basement apartment that I could fix up and house hack.

With an FHA loan I was able to buy the property for $167k and $10k down. The house was 4000 sqft and had 7 bedrooms/ 4 bathrooms with 2 kitchens and .33 acres.

I lived in the home for 1 year while renting out the basement. I then moved into my friend's parent's vacation townhome for $600 and rented out my entire house. My mortgage payment was $900. I was receiving $1350 from my basement renters and $1650 from my upstairs renters.

I kept this rental for 10 years and was a landlord to over 25 individuals. There were several maintenance issues that seemed to happen only on holidays, including a burst hose on the washer unit that flooded my basement on Halloween night. I went over at 7:00pm, in my Halloween costume and pulled the carpet, mopped the floor, got fans installed and apologized to the tenants.

Another incident was when I received a phone call from one of my tenants letting me know that the SWAT Team had busted through the front door, hand cuffed everyone (I had an older couple living upstairs and 4 guys renting downstairs) and started a thorough search though the house. This included busting down 2 of the 3 tenants doors to their private rooms as well as ransacking the tiles in the ceiling. The police had gone undercover and identified one of my tenants as someone who was dealing meth and contacted the SWAT Team to get him. Unfortunately, he was the only one not home. After a high speed chase, they finally caught him and he's currently in the local prison.

This indecent cost me several thousands of dollars in repairs as well as all of my tenants breaking contract and moving out.

I continued renting, however with better back ground checks this time around and found new tenants. I continued to cash flow and things were great. During this time I had moved 45 min away and had 5 kids under 6. Landlording was becoming more difficult with my big family and I decided to sell.

Over the life of the property, including the sale, I made over $500k with only a $10k investment. I was amazed but a little burned out.

I bought a business called snackperk.com in April 2019 that was very successful, however in March 2020, Covid hit and my business suffered greatly. I decided to jump back into residential real estate and I started talking to my friends who were also investing. One friend of mine recommended that I listen to Bigger Pockets and I became even more excited.

Another friend of mine had 40 properties, free and clear, in Indianapolis. I was amazed! So I flew out to see what he was doing. He forwarded me all of his leads from his whole sellers and I found a property that I was interested in. I made a cash offer in the airport the next day on my way home back to Utah. We closed 2 weeks later and I was on fire. Soon after I found another house on the same street and bought it sight unseen.

I started interviewing professionals in the Indianapolis area and put together a team with a really great realtor, general contractor, clean up crew and a property management company. Both properties were distressed and needed a lot of garbage and other stuff cleaned out. I got both properties cleaned up and put one back on the market for $10k more than what I bought it for. The other one is a gut-to-the studs rehab that I'm using hard money to rehab then I'll refinance.

During the same time I found a mountain home just 15 min from my house that fit all the criteria that I was looking for. It was ugly, outdated and undervalued. It was listed for $437k and I offered $380k. They wanted to wait for a better offer and it ended up staying on the market for several more weeks. I reached out again and offered $380k. I didn't want to go above that number. They asked if I'd do $385k and I almost said no, but then decided to see if I could do anything creative on the agent commissions to be able to stick with my $380k offer. At the time I was representing myself, in which both commissions would go to the listing agent. 

I called several agents and finally found one that would give me a 75% kickback on their commissions if I had them represent me. Deal! Everything was already negotiated and ready to go, I just needed the realtor to fill out the paper work and send it over to the listing agent. The sellers had already negotiated a 4.5% commission, 2% for the listing agent and 2.5% for the buyers agent with a total commission of $17,100 ($7600 to the listing agent and $9500 to the buyers agent). At a purchase price of $385k, $7125 will come back to me for listing with my agent that is giving me a 75% kickback once closing happens. This brings my actual purchase price to $377,825. Which is below my $380k offer!

The property was just appraised for $400k and I'm going to use the extra equity as part of the down payment on the conventional loan. I'm planning on putting in $150k to rehab the property in which it will bring the ARV up to $650k. This will give me $100k of instant equity. I can also rent the unit as a vacation home (close to a golf course, Utah lake, hunting, fishing, skiing etc.). Market value supports monthly rents to vary from $6000- 12k per month depending on occupancy and season.

I am now looking at 2 new deals. One is a $2.1m home that is listed for $1.5m (distressed owners with $600k of equity). The other is a 16 unit (8 duplexes) that I'm getting for an initial $250k and a 60 month sellers financing term. The $2.1m home will be a vacation rental where rents can vary from $12k-$30k a month depending on the season and demand. The 16 unit is already cash flowing at $25k a month. 

This amount of scaling is new territory for me and I'd love some advice! My plan is to continue to scale and I'd like to buy a multi family with 50-100 units within the next few years. I love connecting with fellow investors! Thanks for reading. Have a great day! 

I started in real estate investing 10 years ago when I bought my first duplex in Lehi Utah. At the time, lehi will still farm county but was starting to grow. I was living in Brazil at the time and my husband and I were expecting our first child. I wanted to move back to Utah so I started looking for areas that I wanted to buy a house. I started calling the city building and planning committees in a few counties as well as researched the potential growth in the area in the next 5 years. Lehi had great promise and was expected to triple in size within the next several years due to a technology/ busines boom (Lehi is now referred to as Silicon Slopes in the Tech industry). I decided that I wanted to buy in the area and I found an ugly under valued house that had a basement apartment that I could fix up and house hack.

With an FHA loan I was able to buy it for $167k and $10k down. The house was 4000 sqft and had 7 bedrooms/ 4 bathrooms with 2 kitchens and .33 acres.

I lived in the home for 1 year while renting out the basement. I then moved into my friend's parent's vacation townhome for $600 and rented out my entire house. My mortgage payment was $900. I was receiving $1350 from my basement renters and $1650 from my upstairs renters.

I kept this rental for 10 years and was a landlord to over 25 individuals. There were several maintenance issues that seemed to happen only on holidays including a burst house on the washer unit that flooded my basement on Halloween night. I went over at 7:00pm, in my Halloween costume and pulled the carpet, mopped the floor, got fans installed and apologized to the tenants.

Another incident was when I received a phone call from one of my tenants letting me know that the SWAT Team had busted through the front door, hand cuffed everyone (I had an older couple living upstairs and 4 guys renting downstairs) and started a thorough search though the house. This included busting down 2 of the 3 tenants doors to their private rooms as well as ransacking the tiles in the ceiling. The ploice had gone undercover and identified one of my tenants as someone who was dealing meth and contacted the SWAT Team to get him. Unfortunately, he was the only one not home. After a high speed chase, they finally caught him and he's currently in the local prison.

This indecent cost me several thousand dollars in repairs as well as all of my tenants breaking contract and moving out.

I continued renting, however with better back ground checks this time around and found new tenants. I continued to cash flow and things were great. During this time I had moved 45 min away and had 5 kids under 6. Landlording was becoming more difficult with my big family and I decided to sell.

Over the life of the property, including the sale, I made over $500k with only a $10k investment. I was amazed but a little burned out.

I bought a business called snackperk.com in April 2019 that was very successful and with the proceeds I wanted to open a local burger/ice cream restaurant for fun. In March 2020, Covid hit and my business suffered greatly. I decided to jump back into residential real estate and started talking to my friends who were involved in investing. One friend recommended that I listen to Bigger Pockets and I became even more excited.

One friend had 40 properties free and clear in Indianapolis so I flew out to see what he was doing. He forwarded me all of his leads from his whole sellers and I found a property that I was interested in. I made a cash offer in the airport the next day on my way home back to Utah. We closed 2 weeks later and I was pumped. Soon after I found another house on the same street and bought it sight unseen.

I put together a team out in Indianapolis and cleaned up both properties. The second one I put back in the market for a quick flip and the second one is a gut-to-the studs rehab that I'm using hard money to rehab then I'll refinance.

During that time I found a mountain home just 15 min from my home that fit all the criteria that I was looking for. Ugly, outdated and undervalued. It was listed for $437k. I offered $380k but they wanted to wait fit a better offer. It stayed on the market for several weeks. I reached out again and offered $380k. I didn't want to go above that number. They asked if I'd do $385k. I almost said no, but decided to see if I could do anything on the agent commissions side to stick with my $380k offer. I called several agents and finally found one that would give me 75% backpay on their commissions if I had them represent me. Deal! At $380k the sellers negotiated a 4.5% commission, 2% for the listing agent and 2.5% for the buyers agent. A total commission of $17,100 ($7600 to the listing agent and $9500 to the buyers agent. $7125 will come back to me for listing with my agent that is giving me a 75% payback once closing happens. This brings my actual purchase price to $377,825. Which is below my $380k offer!

The property was just appraised for $400k and I'm going to use the extra equity as part of the down payment on the conventional loan. Im planning on putting in $150k to rehab the property in which it will bring the ARV up to $650k. This will give me $100k of instant equity. I can also rent the unit as a vacation home (close to a golf course, utah lake, hunting, fishing, skiing etc.). Market value supports monthly rents to vary from $6000- 12k per month depending on occupancy and season.

I am now looking at 2 new deals. One is a $2.1m home that is listed for $1.5m (distressed owners) . The other is a 16 unit (8 duplexes) that I could get with sellers financing. Each property has potential of bringing in rents of $15k-40k per month.

This amount of scaling is new territory for me and I'd love some advice! My plan is to continue to scale. I'd like to buy a multi family with 50-100 units and buy over seas as well. I have some areas in Brazil that look promising and I've also considered Switzerland.

I love connecting with fellow investors and partnering on deals. Im looking for experienced investors that can give me some advice on these two new opportunities and I'd love to share my knowledge with others!