All Forum Posts by: Charles Soper

@Michael Le that is correct, I misspoke, "finder's fee" was a poor way to put it.

Congrats on the 4-plex, or atleast branching into multi-family!

The answer as usual is "it depends".

What class is the property?  If it's C- minus or worse then it wouldn't surprise me if the current owner is paying all utilities just to keep it occupied.  Higher class C and above then it's more dependent on the comps in the neighborhood, what are other small multi-family properties doing?  If they're all doing it as well then yeah, it's standard practice for the area.

If not then you have an opportunity to reduce expenses and increase your net income, yeah!

Something else to consider is if the utilities are separately metered, if they aren't that could be the reason the owner is paying it all, it can be a hassle.  So work that into your numbers, if you're doing a rehab it might be worth your time to get a plumber/electrician out to get a quote on breaking out the utilities.

Yep, that's syndication.  There are a number of resources out there to educate yourself right now:

Podcasts:

Whitney Sewell - The Real Estate Syndication Show
Joe Fairless - Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever
Michael Blank - Apartment Building Investing
Rod Khleif - Lifetime Cashflow through Real Estate Investing

Books, very similar list:

Joe Fairless - Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book
Michael Blank - Financial Freedom with Real Estate Investing (go to his website, I think it's free)
Rod Khleif - Lifetime Cashflow through Real Estate Investing (also go to his website, it's free

Happy to answer any other questions as well, just PM me.

Nice trade up!  I don't see many people putting up so much cash and having so little leverage, it's kind of refreshing.

What you are calling ROI should actually be NOI, which is pre-mortgage debt service. So if you want ROI you should be subtracting out the payment (P+I) on the $800k you have left in a loan and that will allow you to do apples to apples as far as ROI vs. your duplexes.

You could also act as an equity raise partner on the GP side of a syndication.  You bring the investors and partner with an operator who has experience in syndication for either a finders fee or a percentage of the GP equity.  Great way to learn the business!

Nice, sometimes the anticipation of ripping the bandaid off hurts more than the actual act!  Thanks for the lesson.

@Stephen Aki Would you kind PM’ing me the Who not to use?

Sadly, as positive as I like to be, need to keep the naughty list too.

@Sid Payne likewise would you please send me yours?

One source that is more time intensive but data rich is using the appraisers office of the local municipality.   Any of them have downloadable data usually in excel format that you can sort by zoning, sale date, unit count, zip, etc.  I’ve found it can really help you visualize an area if you combine that data with google maps.

I download data for a county, filter it by unit count and sales date.  Once I have that list I save that list to a separate Spears het to keep the file size small and then import that into my maps.google.com.  Gives me a pin at each address and then the pop up shows me unit count and sales date which helps me decide if I want to dive deeper and find owner info

I can’t speak to Alabama specifically but regardless of type/size of loan more often than not you are better off with a local community bank.  That may not hold true in the case of large syndication or commercial type deals but you didn’t specify.

Hey @Simon Hernandez, you’re playing in my backyard.  Out of curiosity how did you come about this property?

So I’m not sure how well you know Bradenton but that area is kinda of the edge of the hood, depending which direction from the park you mentioned that could work for or against you.

Send me a PM and I can get you the name of a property manager that a lot of the local REIA members use and happy to get you a some contractor info as well. Get you an agent or investor if you want to sell it as well.