All Forum Posts by: Bryan Blancke

I am interested in buying a triplex. There was a fire and the current tenants are in temporary housing. The house is being renovated with the insurance funds. I want to get the property, but it seems silly to make an offer and enter a purchase agreement on something which I have yet to see the finished product. Is it okay to lock this property down in a purchase agreement so someone else does not buy it, but change my offer based on the outcome of the renovations?

Hey @Brian V.,

How have things been going for you? Have you attended the MREI in Troy yet? I went there my first time in November. I am going to be back in 2016. Hope to meet you there. I am also interested in Ferndale and surrounding area's. Hope things are well.

In my experience as a tenant in MI, it is usually required to put all the utilities in the tenants name. 

From listing to the podcasts, it seems most landlords being interviewed favor tenants paying utilities. Many of whom have gone out of their way to pay for separating the meters in small apartment complexes or multifamily investments. It will cut down on waste significantly. However, there have been some podcast stories of paying for separate meters to backfire. Depending on the market, you need to see what your competition is doing. If you are the only owner who doesn't wrap utilities into the rents, your customers will leave you for the competition. Also, in some cases where the cost to do the separate metering is higher than usual due to the the existing infrastructure, some podcast guests choose not to separate the meters on some investments. Generally, if you can separate, and people wouldn't put up a fight about paying the utilities, I would definitely make the tenants handle those.

I am interested in starting a direct mail campaign. I am not sure how to handle the calls. How are the successful wholesalers managing this part of the business? After listening to more than a third of the podcasts, I recall people mentioning google voice to get people to leave voice mail. Is this a good way to do it? Review voice mails and call back the good ones? I don't think planning to answer all the calls myself is feasible. I work a 9-5 job. I also have heard about hiring remote assistants for handling calls. Any insight or direction on where to look into more details would be much appreciated. 

I need to start participating more. Thanks for making this thread, it reminds me of that. At first, I didn't want to respond to peoples questions very often, but after listening to the podcast I have learned a lot and feel more prepared to offer some direction when people have questions. I worked my way up to show 61 so far with very few missed episodes in between.

@Loren Thomas, I don't see why you couldn't wholesale a multifamily property. You need to find investors who are interested in cash flow properties. Multifamily tends to cash flow well. Use the 2% rule to determine a rough starting point of what market value is of the property you want to wholesale. When planning to wholesale it is important to have such a cheap by in on the property that you can make money, and your investor is still getting a deal on the property. Make sure you research that the deal has enough meat on the bone before getting it under contract. Network to find some local buy and hold investors.

Basically Ben and Brandon argued an entire hour of a two hour podcast about a multifamily Brandon purchased named Waldo. Waldo looked good on paper, but had a lot of problems which Brandon overcame, learning a lot of sweat equity lessons. Ben says along the lines that a property is a stepping stone or a slipping stone and would urge investors to stay away from a Waldo because you will get farther in your goals not taking a waldo and looking for all good deals, while Brandon values the hard lessons learned in a Waldo project.

Its a Waldo! Listen to show 61. @Ben Leybovich

I am interested in raw land investing. I dont fully understand all the exit strategies one might exercise when buying, holding, or wholesaling raw land. If I purchase a property and I can't get it to move is it priced incorrectly or should i expect that holding time before a sale can be a long time? What else can I do with raw land other than sell it? I am not very interested in doing my own development. Not yet at least.

Hello BP Community!

I am a new investor. I have been listening to the podcasts and reading up on real estate for 3 months now.

My initial strategy is to execute a buy and hold for cash flow with a focus on multifamily units in B class neighborhood in my general area. Areas such as Royal Oak Michigan. Things have felt slow so far and the MLS doesn't seem to be working well for me. I have analyzed many properties in my area on the MLS in various neighborhoods from C and B class. I went to view about 15 properties. So far nothing has passed my $200 cash flow criteria per my analysis, and or I am not happy with the quality of tenants of the area. Although I am not giving a passing grade on the properties in my calculations, many of them are meeting the 50% rule and the 1% rule. I don't think I am overestimating in my calculations, but perhaps I am. A simple explanation of my math is im taking average rent from rentometer.com, and my expenses are 10% repairs, 8.3% vacancy, and 10% property management. Nothing is cash flowing well with these calculations. Some were close to $200 cash flow, but I did not like the area or conditions of the properties at the price point.

I am really intrigued by Seth Williams podcast about flipping raw land. I am considering changing my strategy and focusing on starting a direct mail campaign to execute the raw land flip strategy. This will build capital which I can later put back into the cash flow  multifamily buy and hold investment strategy.