All Forum Posts by: Casey Waters

@Scott Doyen Yes, Huntsville really intrigues me. It seems to be an incredible city. It's a little harder to analyze it due to it not being frequently discussed or reported upon compared with larger metros, but perhaps that will also mean less competition. What kind of price to rent ratios are you getting for your SFHs?

@Brian Briscoe Thank you for the info on Ogden. Those are just the kind of tips I'm looking for. And @Steve Sellers, I will take a look into the Logan market.

@Erik Hatch Absolutely. Data is critical. I pulled data from the Census Bureau, the BLS, Zillow, and City-Data, along with referencing the following six reports: 
- Marcus & Millichap Annual US Multifamily Investment Forecast
- CBRE Biannual Cap Rate Survey
- Integra Realty Resources (IRR) Annual Viewpoint Commercial Real Estate Trends Report
- Zillow Annual Consumer House Trends Reports
- RCLCO Quarterly State of the Real Estate Market
- PWC Annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate

I then used primarily the market filtering criteria suggested by Joe Fairless (Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book) and David Lindahl (Emerging Real Estate Markets).

I'm just worried that this is the same data being used by every other investor, potentially causing excessive competition.

I am a new investor. My plan is to start by house hacking a fourplex, followed by purchasing a few more small multifamily properties (4-16 units) over the next few years in order to get the experience I need in order to become an apartment syndicator of much larger deals.

Most people in real estate seem to recommend investing where you live and work because familiarity with an area can provide a competitive advantage. Got it. Unfortunately, I neither live in nor am familiar with any city in which either the inventory of multifamily properties or the investment returns are sufficient. I don't want to start my investing career as a long distance investor, and since I work from home, I have the freedom to move my family anywhere in the country so as to optimize our chances of success in this business.

After much research, I have selected four cities that look promising: Orlando, FL, Arlington, TX, Huntsville, AL, and Ogden, UT. These all appear to be booming markets over both one and five year periods with good job, population, and rent growth, sufficient industry diversification, low vacancy, unemployment, and crime, favorable landlord/tenant laws, and potentially good cash flow and return on investment, provided a good deal can be found.

And that is the question: in which of these four cities do you think deals will be most available? I know they are all hot cities and we are near the top of a long climb in the market (in spite of this virus), but where will I potentially have the least competition from other investors. I plan to search for off market deals using several of the commonly discussed methods. If in your opinion, any of these markets would be poor choices, please elaborate. Thank you so much for your help.

Thank you all for your help. I always enjoy trying to come up with ways to make the most of the tools given to me. The FHA loan is clearly a useful tool. Perhaps, like Michael Gallagher said, it may come down to just asking many different banks until I find one that will work with me.

I and my wife are looking to start our investing career by doing some house hacking. For financing, we plan to use an FHA loan. I also have the option of using a VA loan. I understand that when using these loans, one is required to actually live in the house, limiting the scalability of this investing strategy because only one house can generally be lived in at a time. Here's my question: Would it be possible to sort of work around this limitation and get two separate FHA loans if I live in and hold one FHA mortgage on one property and my wife lives in and holds a separate FHA mortgage on a separate property? I know this seems kind of weird, but would it be possible/legal? It would allow us to really jump start our number of units. (We are hoping to start out with two 4-unit properties.) Alternatively, would it be possible for me to live at and hold a VA mortgage on one property while she lives at and holds a FHA mortgage at a separate property? Or is there another way we should consider putting to use our options? Thank you.

I'm getting started in flipping and am just starting to look for my first property. I will be marketing for my own deals, and I don't expect to find many/any deals on the MLS, so I won't really be using an agent to help me find deals. However, I will be utilizing an agent to help me sell the houses after I rehab them. My question is this: is it polite to ask my listing agent to run comps for me on properties that I am looking at buying, and if so, how many comps per week would it be polite to ask them to analyze? Also, in order to not overburden any one agent asking them to run tons of comps and calculate tons of ARVs, do you think it's okay to ask several different agents to run comps in the process of buying a single property? My concern doing this is how would I make it worth it to all of them, since I can only use one of them to sell the house? Let me know if I need to add more details to clarify this question.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was able to get in touch with a local bank that says they can do this. We'll see if it goes through.

I currently own 70 acres of land free and clear near Willow Springs, Missouri. I am looking for a lender from whom I can get a personal line of credit similar to a home equity line of credit secured by this land. However, there is no home on the land, so it would be more like a “land equity line of credit,” if there is such a thing. I just want to be able to utilize the equity I have in that property without selling it. The land is a combination of forest and pasture with two storage sheds, a water well, and no other improvements.

I intend to use the LOC to pay for rehabilitation, down payment, and/or holding costs that will be necessary to buy, rehabilitate, and then immediately resell residential properties for profit in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This will be my first real estate deal. After reselling these properties, I want to be able to pay off the LOC but then still have that LOC available for the next house flip; that is, I prefer a LOC over a loan because I hope to repeat this process many times.

Has anyone ever heard of a lender extending a line of credit like this secured by land? Or is there any chance someone might be able to point me in the right direction?

Hi there everyone. I'm brand new to real estate investing and to BiggerPockets, but I've been listening to the podcast for quite a while now and have read quite a few REI books, including several published by BiggerPockets. My current plan is to rehab and flip in Colorado (where I live and work) for the next 3 to 5 years in order to increase capital as quickly as possible, and then to transition into buy and hold rentals (preferably apartments, perhaps through the BRRRR strategy), either in Colorado or in a different, out-of-state market better suited to the rental business. I am currently trying to narrow down my initial target market and specific farming area. I live in Pueblo West and work in Canon City, but I can't say I'm necessarily in love with either of those towns and am inclined to think Colorado Springs (which is a little farther for me but still within driving distance) may be a better market for either flipping houses or long term investing due to better schools, lower crime rates, faster population growth, more jobs, nearer to Denver, etc. However, as I only just recently moved to Colorado, I don't have that intuitive market understanding that comes from living somewhere for a while. So, here are my questions:

First, in addition to the quicker short-term cash-generation potential of flipping over buy and hold, I think that flipping may be a better business model for me in these cities due to Colorado's high price to rent ratios, but does anyone have any other thoughts on which real estate investment model may work best in this market?

Second, within El Paso County, Pueblo County, or Fremont County, does anyone have any recommendations on which city or zip code(s) or neighborhoods may prove to be the best target market or farming area, and why?

Thank you all so much.