All Forum Posts by: Changseok Kim

@John Warren

Thank you so much! I will try it out!

@Billy Daniel

Thank you so much!!

Hello,

I am living in kalamazoo, MI, and I am looking for my first potential investment property. I spotted a couple of houses that I think may be decent deals. I want to check with local property managers to verify how is the rental market and average rent in the area. However, I am not sure of how to find good property managers. I tried to find in BP, but everyone i can find seems to be realtors, but not necessarily property managers. How do you find good local property managers?

I will appreciate your advice and thought.

Thank you.

@Paul Doty

Thank you so much for your advice. Since this is my first time, I am looking for small multi-family, but open to single family house, too. Aiming at monthly cashflow +$100 - 200. Cash on cash return 8-12%, hopefully high end, but realized almost impossible.

I will appreciate any advice.

Thank you so much. Yes, I love to start in my area, but my calculation does not give me a good number. In kalamazoo, we have Western Michigan University. So I was hoping to find a good multi-family house deal, But houses are old, and owners of those houses try to marked up high, so it will be negative cashflow after repair and maintenance. and I cannot really increase rent as students will not be interested in those units with high rent. I also was searching for houses for flipping, but all those distressed houses are located in downtown where crime rate is high and surrounded by not so good neighbors. I have been looking and looking, but could not come up with a great solution. Finally I reached out my old realtor to look for a good deal.....Hope I hear something from her. 

Another question that I would like to ask is how to make the realtors on your side. As you know, realtors get paid by percentage of the house price. So I have feeling that buyer's agent would not really try hard to reduce the price of the house in negotiation. Do you have your own strategy that you can share? 

Thank you so much again!

wow! thank you so much!! I was almost convinced to take cash-out refi by a lender. You saved me from tons of trouble.So If I want to purchase $200,000 house then, can I take $50,000 from HELOC and use it as down payment for conventional loan? Am I doing risky gamble here?

@Red Smith

Thank you so much!! Would you recommend cash-out refinance over HELOC? My understanding is that cash-out re-finance has lower interest rate even though it has high charges associated with it. I will certainly look foe deals in those areas.

Hi,

I recently opened my eyes in real estate investment. I was always scared of getting involved in it, but after reading and researching, i finally decided to take a step. I am currently living in kalamazoo, MI. Currently, i do not have enough cash to pay 20% of down payment for conventional loan, but i have a house which I paid $150,000 towards $270,000 mortgage. I am thinking to have either home equity loan or cash out refinance to invest. The rental costs and house prices in my area are not high. So I am not sure if BRRRR would work. So i guess the only good option narrows down to flipping house. But it has been seller's market for 4 years here. I cannot really find any good deals within my budget.

Can I ask for advice of where I can start to make things happen? What would you do in my situation?