All Forum Posts by: Stan Butler

We have several rental properties in the Kennesaw area.  Its a great area for families with young kids, which are a great tenant group.  The closer you get to KSU the more you are going to attract college students, which is not our model.  Its a tradeoff between higher rents and longer terms.  Like @Julie Kern we have not been able to acquire anything new in over a year due to price / rent ratios.

My experience is somewhat different than a lot of what's posted here. I am certainly not a big player, but I have been investing for more than 10 years and do many deals each year. I get the majority of my deals from wholesalers and the remainder on my own.

I have done a few deals with NWA over the last several years. I look at them no differently than any of the other wholesalers that I buy from. Their job is to go out and secure opportunities and to present them to me. My job is to evaluate those deals and either proceed or ignore. I look at it as I am paying a wholesaler for their time, marketing and negotiating to lock up a deal. Sometimes ARV estimates are high and sometimes rehab estimates are low. I have generally found their numbers to be within reason. I ALWAYS run my own comps and ALWAYS see the properties before making an offer. I often lose out to people that are buying "blind" or can operate on thin margins. If I cannot make the numbers work then I simply DO NOT BUY the house. I guess I just don't see any difference between NWA and how other wholesalers operate except they have a much bigger volume.

I have used it now on 4 flips and it has worked very well.  Its very easy to install without any wires or holes in the wall.  You need to make sure to get the cellular transmitter that can be off the network for extended periods of time between activation of service.  I had to switch my cellular transmitter because the one they originally sent me got turned off by the provider.  I think the correct one to have is from TMobile, but I cant remember at the moment.

This can definitely be done.  You cant walk into a big bank and get a loan done this way because they only want to write "conforming" loans.  You need to go to a small regional bank and meet with the VP and talk about "portfolio" loans.  This is where the lender holds the paper and is not looking to sell it on the open market.  Ive done this many times with several different lenders and its all about relationships.  If you walk into SunTrust, Citibank, or Wells Fargo then you are wating your time....

I would summarize what @Ruth Bayang said in her first few points in one word, "Communication".  We have probably been through 5-7 contractors in our 12 years of Real Estate Investing and we have dropped some good ones just for that reason.

@Greg H. is correct that HUD only cares about the Net. I used to buy a couple of homes from HUD each year and they produced some of my best deals ever. The 87% number was always the minimum net that they would accept for properties that entered the Extended phase and had not yet been reduced. I actually wrote my own Excel Macros to download the data daily and record the net price versus offer and original list price and further broke down this data based on DOM. As HUD has been making changes to the bidding process over the last several years, I have stopped buying altogether. There are just not any deals to be had in my areas anymore and people are paying ridiculous prices to win the bids.

We had a similar situation on a house we were flipping intown, except that the car was literally in the driveway and blocking our renovation.  We called a local towing company and they knew the laws and process that needed to be followed.  They came and posted a sign on the property and on the car window for several days, then came and towed the car.

Not sure anyone can fully answer your question, because the answer is.............. it depends.

I would make sure you have at least a couple grand set aside for each property for things like an HVAC or hot water heater.  After you build up some reserves then I think its ok to start pocketing some cash or putting some on the principal.

Net Worth is the difference between your assets and your liabilities.  When you sell your home with $25k equity and convert that into $25k cash, you arent giving away anything.  Besides, you cant pay for groceries with equity.  You need a mix of short-term and long-term real estate investments in my opinion.

Bigger banks are not going to offer the kind of loan product you are seeking. They only originate "conforming" loans, while you are looking for "non-conforming" or "portfolio" loans. A loan in the name of an LLC is not a conforming loan. You definitely want to be networking with the smaller community banks because many of them will hold the notes in their portfolio. You will still have to guarantee the loans personally.