All Forum Posts by: Chris Berry

Thanks for the replies.  We decided to go with open letter marketing.  They kept coming up on my searches.  I'll come back and say how it goes after the first campaign.

We are looking to start a direct marketing campaign for our own house flipping business.  I have looked into Ballpoint, Open Letter, and reprintmail.  I was looking for some recommendations on what others have found to be successful.  Thanks.

How's it going? We are currently looking for General Contractors for our flips in the Hampton Roads area.   

Congrats on getting your first property!  I have had a lot of luck on Long Island with section 8.  I was unsure of how it would go originally when I started back in 2017 with our 1st section 8 tenant.  I currently have three which have stayed since I bought the houses 2017, 2018 and 2019.  The turnover is where you will lose a huge amount of money.  It has been good to retain them for so long and section 8 has been good with increasing the rents each year.  I would still screen the tenants just like any other one.  I would also try especially in the beginning at least quarterly to complete some routine maintenance and make sure the house is being taken care of properly.  Good luck with your property and let me know if you have any other questions.

I don't live abroad, but I do self-manage all of my properties remotely.  I use an investor friendly real estate agent that you can find here on BP.  I pay them the 1st months' rent to find a quality tenant to put into the house.  One of the houses I also talked to the same agent who had a good rolodex of different vendors to help with maintenance requests.  I also pay her every six months to walk the property and take pictures for condition.  I believe it is worth self-managing especially with one property that sounds like it is in decent condition.  You are also not in the middle of nowhere living outside of Boston so you should not have an issue finding people to work on the house.  If you have any other questions you can reach out to me directly.

Quote from @Koen Ballantine:

@Randall Alan
Hi sir yes im looking to house hack and hold thank you for the advice i definitely will hold until interests rates cool a little!

 I think it is impossible to "time" the market and wait for the perfect time.  The interest rates might not drop considerably for a long time.  The prices could continue increasing while you are waiting for the interest rates to drop.  They might also drop and then everyone comes rushing back in and making it harder to find a good deal.  If you talk to the bank and see what you can afford and the numbers make sense with the current conditions than go for it. You will never feel 100% ready.   

Quote from @Alex Smith:

Hello everyone,

I am 29 years old and have a decent W2 income. However, I also have significant student loan debt. In the past 2 years, I have used my extra money to pay off student loans by interest rate. I am now at the point where my interest rates are <6%. I have decided that my money will be better spent on investing in real estate. I am interested in a single-family home to start off. The problem is I currently do not have enough for 20% down, especially in a high COL area in Connecticut. If I were to buy a somewhat distressed home, obviously renovations would add to that. What is the best way to finance this? Should I save up for 6 months - 1 year+ to come up with 20% down and reno funds? Is it worth putting <20% down and living in the house for 6 months with FHA? (This would add sig to monthly payments and limit cash flow). Any advice helps! Thank you

I would agree with what the other comments have said.  Especially if you are living in CT in a high cost of living area, I would assume it is going to be in an appreciating area.  If you were able to house hack with such a low-down payment option that would be ideal.  This will also allow you to get the hang of being a landlord and if you actually like it.  After the one-year period you could rent it out and get another house hack.  This way you have two assets in a higher appreciating area and will start your snowball from there.  While starting off with this strategy you could also be studying more about value-add options and start attending meetups in your area to get an idea of what other people are doing.  I'm originally from Long Island and that is where I started investing.  If you have any more questions reach and.

Quote from @Antonio Patterson:

New to Real Estate and wanting to learn and do Section 8 rentals and AirBnb's. My long term goal is to get into Multifamily apartments. We all have to start somewhere and I'm looking to become a expert in Section 8 rentals, the BRRR method, and AirBnb's at this time. I currently have a holding company LLC created called Opal Capital Holdings back in March. I figured I start in my own backyard Raleigh,NC, the surrounding areas, and go from there. I know this is a learning process, so I would like to know if there is anyone in the Section 8 investor realm that could offer advise and what they did when they started?

The 1st thing I would look into is the Corporate Transparency Act. I believe since you opened the LLC this year you had 90 days to file with FInCen, and from what I read could have hefty fines and a felony.

I have four SFH's on Long Island and I have had very good success with section 8 with these houses. I bought them 2017, 2018, and 2019 and have had the initial section 8 tenants stay in the respective houses since then. It was a very easy process on Long Island my agent just found the tenants and had some extra paperwork to get things set up initially. I have been able to substantially increase the rents during this period of time with having not much of an impact on the tenants. If you have any other specific questions, you can reach out to me. I was initially hesitant to do it but have been very happy. Between the lack of turnover and significant rent increases has made it easy to be very profitable with these houses.

Quote from @Kayla M.:

@Chris Berry Yes, it was purchased from CR of Maryland. They are honestly horrible and this is not the first story I’ve heard of them doing investors wrong. I sometimes wonder if it makes sense for all of us landlords to confront them, they sold us a lie and now we are severely struggling from it. Not sure what can come of that or if there’s even a point. It’s difficult to get ahold of Xander, he hides behind his staff.

Yes!!!  They kept messing things up and hiding stuff from me and then would be aggressive towards me.  I would suggest calling RPM property management.  I believe they have taken over a lot of CR of Maryland customers.  If you are still with CR of Maryland they will transition you to their management system.  I have been much happier and less stressed since switching over to them.  Could be a good alternative instead of selling.  I also tried to sell it back to CR of Maryland with no success.  The problem with selling to another investor with the high interest rates it will no longer cash flow so nobody wants to buy it.  I've decided to stabilize it and pay down the mortgage for a while and reassess in the future what my plan is.

Did you happen to buy the property for CR of Maryland?  I also went thru a nightmare situation with them for two years.  I ended up switching PM companies to RPM, and have had a better experience with them so far.