All Forum Posts by: Javier Molina

Out of curiosity, @Bill B. How is everything going? Have you been able to make more of a profit, and find some sucess? Keep me posted. I am interested in your progress!!!

I really need to find a way to get an email when someone responds... Or check this thread more often... lol

I am not currently actively looking for deals. I just secured my first house and will be renting it out in a few months. Once I have a comfortable cushion and enough for a down payment then I will start to look at more deals. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later...

What I will be after thou is single family homes for buy and hold. Will I not look at other types of properties or investment opportunities? No, I am sure if I find something profitable I will take it. But my main focus is SFH buy and hold for now. When I have enough capitol, experience, and network then I might dive in to the fix and flip industry.

If you need someone to go check out a property, take some pictures, or scope out a neighborhood let me know. Like I said I am here until Feb 2014.

Just a quick update, I am currently closing on a house. About 2 weeks away, very excited. Not quite the numbers I was hoping for but I am happy with the deal. At worst I will be putting in $70 a month. Is it at a potential loss? Yes but it's worth it long term to me for some one else paying 90% of my mortgage. At best I will be receiving a profit of $325 a month. So going down the middle of the road I should be getting about $127 a month profit. All in all I am happy. Still haven't decided if I am going to use property management or not as that eats in to my profits quite a bit.

Can't wait until I am in @Brian Burke's position and buy a 140 unit property at such a high rate of return!!! Congrats by the way!

Sorry about not responding earlier, didn't notice the post and I haven't been on for quite a while. In case you are still interested, I wouldn't touch Trona with a 10 foot pole, make that 10 mile pole... The place is a trailer town. Yes there are houses, but 99.99% of them are torn to all hell. Think Hills Have Eyes, literally, as in that is the town the movie was filmed in... Can you get dirt cheap houses? Yes. Are they worse than the projects in Oakland, yes. So it is your call. I am in Ridgecrest until Feb 2014 so if you need anything feel free to ask, hopefully I wont take 2 months to reply :p

I am currently in Ridgecrest. The only people I have seen so far are out of the area wholesalers that work remotely. I will let you know if I find anybody that is local.

William Strong House is foreclosed to VA so no active mortgage. I don't know of any insurance brokers, I will have to do some homework.

Update on offer: seller agent says that there is a current offer on the house at full price (131k), they want a best and final. I partially think they are bluffing, not sure thou. Either way I told my agent to keep it at the 110k. I am not willing to do pay 131k for an investing house. I'm already coming too close at 110k. It will hurt to walk away from but business is business.

Quick edit. Came home to redo the numbers on not paying a property manager and found out it doesn't push me over the $100 per unit but it does get me significantly closer...

Jason Minnich What about background checks, credit checks, showing the property, checking to see the status of the property after someone moves out... If I am able to cover those bases then I just might forgo property managers. Regarding home warranties, I am considering it seeing as its only $300-$400 a year but all they cover is appliances, everything in this house is mostly new. House was built in 2007...

Also I am looking around for landlord insurance, I haven't found anything that covers move out damages, or vacancies. All I find is insurance that covers missed payments, or appliances. I want something that covers carpet and walls (since that is the main thing people damage from my experience being the renter) And something to cover vacancy if I can not rent it out for several months due to terrible local economy for what ever reason. Any info on that?

Simon Campbell Thanks again. I fully expect them to shoot it down with at the least a counter offer. I will be thoroughly surprised if they accept it flat out... I will be keeping my eye out for anything better as I negotiate this property. Yes I understand that I should be shooting for $100 a month per unit. From what I have seen on the market the last few months I do not think that will be very possible without dipping in to the lower income houses and neighborhoods, which tend to have more issues with renters and what not. I honestly do not want to touch those properties. My target is middle class. About 40-80K income families. Yes I know this restricts my options quite a bit but it's my "nitch".

Jason Minnich I have considered that as a way to lower that principle as much and quickly as possible. For two reasons, either to pay that house off as quickly as possible or to refinance it to get better cash flow. Or to just save up the difference so that I have a 6 month buffer for vacancies, repairs, etc... My main reason for using a property manager is to handle finding the renters, interviewing them, and handing all repairs while I am gone. Make my life overall easier since I will be land lording from a distance. If I was able to not hire a property manager then I would be fine with cash flow. That would be 10% more rent in my pocket which translates to about 110 dollars a month. That would push me over the $100 per unit cash flow. Any ideas on how to live without a property manager would me awesome!

Just as a quick update, put in my offer last night. Apparently the seller's realtor says that the VA (that owns the home) will only pay 3% in concessions to be used however I please but will not pay any Escrow fees, taxes, lender required repairs or anything, not even their part... My realtor said screw that and put in the offer with them paying everything along with a year of home warranty, termite inspection, and all sorts of other things. :P Can't wait to see how they respond or what the counter offer will be.

Problem with this small POS town is that there are very limited investors or much of a market for there to be flippers, wholesalers, etc... If I get in to a market where there are a decent amount of people for me to connect with then I will gladly do that, as it is an awesome idea that I didn't think of... I'll keep my eye out just incase there is that one flipper in this town going thru the houses one at a time.

Ok so CPAs are only for tax season then? Not someone to maintain your bookeeping or anything correct? As for taxes I am relatively confident I can do it myself with the help of tax slayer. If it does get more complicated I can start to use the on base legal tax assistance that the military offers.

Lastly, regarding that last house would it be that terrible of an idea to go ahead and offer 110k? And am I crazy to put in that offer when they are asking for 130k?

Again thank you for all your help.