All Forum Posts by: Alex Chin

Hello @Elex Lee - I would look to download the Ultimate Beginner's Guide from the website, provides a decent foundation. From there, check the blogs, look at the areas that most interest you and start reading.

For local meet ups, @Troy Fisher runs one in Kirkland, @Tiffany Plovie runs the Seattle meet, and @Kevin C./ @Kelsy Soderlund? run the one in Tacoma/Lakewood.

@Ben D. - First off, I agree with @Ruth Bayang, the primary goal with a live-in small-multifamily property is not to cashflow. You're looking to reduce living expenses as much as possible and as such, throw out the usual notions of 1%/50% "rules". If you can find a place where your family member can live in one side and the tenants rent pays the mortgage, you're doing alright. Keep in mind, your relative would have to either pay $XYZ for rent, or put down $ABC in downpayment, then still have PITI every month to deal with. Switch up your thinking.

In a househack scenario, you want to get monthly living expenses from PITI down to $0 if you can, any cash left over to help pay for utilities, repairs, and CapEx reserves is a bonus.

Timing the market is more something that flippers need to worry about, if your relative is buying a place to live for the next 10yrs., he has the ability to ride out a crash and still be ok. Buyer's remorse is a terrible thing to start obsessing about.

@Susie C. is hosting a networking meet-up in Tacoma-Lakewood, one of the submarkets to Seattle and a very active area of investment for many flippers and landlords.

Check his most recent posting, it's a great place to get your local network started.

Hello @Noelle Yarn, @Dan Madden

So far, nothing to report. Looks like my family may end up using our timeshare this year, so ended up putting renting out weeks on hold until further notice. Will hopefully revisit in a couple weeks when I have better clarity from the folks.

@Peter Grote - I currently work with Tim Tran of the Tran Law Group. They are headquartered out of the ID and he is an investor himself in both residential and commercial property. Honest about what he is good at and what he would refer you to someone else for.

Let me know if you would like contact information or PM me for pricing I have gotten for a few simple projects I have used him for.

@Lisa Troxel - the trick with Seattle is that local ordinances that make short-term rentals illegal unless you live in the property are looking more and more likely.

@Paul Weller - I have heard some really good things about the San Juan Islands and potentially on Whidbey as well.

Hello @Brandon Harris. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, make sure you give the hiking trails a try at some point.

I am not able to mentor anyone myself, but I would advise you on a couple of tips for seeking out someone(s) to learn from:

What do you bring to the table other than hard work and willingness to learn? Bluntly speaking, every beginner has that. What skills, knowledge, or connections do you have that you can leverage into both a competitive advantage for yourself, and a foundation to mentor around?

For figuring out what investment vehicle makes the most sense, you need to take stock of your assets and how to build your real estate around your lifestyle. For example, if you have a good paying job, buy-holds or notes or turnkeys might be the way to go while your 9-5 generates a constant cash infusion to keep your business growing. If you have a job that is easily replaced or has highly flexible hours, maybe you have the bandwidth to tackle a flip.

Cheers, and good luck!

@Jason Fox - first things first, 1%/2% "rules" should never be considered a lock in any way. You can lose money on a 3% house, and make money on a 0.5% house; a savvy investor has to dig a heck of a lot deeper than comparing rents to purchase price.

I think the thing that stands out to me is that you have zero reserve expense built into your numbers, it looks like you consider anything that isn't PITI to be straight profit.

Unless you intend to sell the properties within the next 5yrs. or so, at some point you WILL have cap-ex, maintenance expenses, etc. For example: say you have a new composition roof. That's only going to last you 15-20yrs. (we'll say 20) and will cost about $15,000 to replace. Thus you should have a Roof, Cap-Ex expense of $62.50 that you pull out every month for when you do eventually need to replace it.

Take these items into account and take another look at your "profit" to see if the cash-flow still meets your requirements, what's your ROI on the down payment investments?.

@Mark Kao - a fixed 3.75 and 4.25 is outstanding, wish I could get those numbers on some of the NOO properties I'm looking at right now.

My opinion is that if the condo is paid off and you haven't had any bad experiences with the HOA, nor have any reason to believe a series of special assessments are on the horizon, then I'd do as others have suggested and pull maybe 50-75% equity out to expand your portfolio.

@Ben Lukes - Personally, I don't mind the C and B areas, so keep that in mind.

I currently like the area between S. 9th and S. 15th, between the two hospitals. I can handle the tenant issues that might pop up, crime has been on a slow but steady decrease for awhile now, and rents are more than covering PITI, my reserves (vacancy, maintenance, capex, etc.), and leaving me with a good chunk afterwards.

On the longer-time scale view, I think that Tacoma has really good appreciation potential both in rents and property value in the next 5-10 years.