All Forum Posts by: Chris Berry

I've done a few flips.  It was much harder to make work than I anticipated.  I was also surprised how much of my own capital starting out you need between closing costs and floating the repairs until you get the work done and get the money back from hard money lender.  I would consider doing it the opposite order.  You could buy a primary house with 3.5-5% down and have it be a duplex/triplex or a basement that you could rent out.  You could do this each year and turn the primary into a rental has you move on to the next.  Now you start building a portfolio which is much less risk than jumping into flipping where you could lose all of your money in one deal.  In the meantime, you could use BP to learn how to flip and also go to local meetups in your area to meet people that are doing what you want to do in the area.  You can reach out of you have anymore specific questions.

I'm not sure how expensive the area that you live in is and how willing you are to move. I would look at renting out the house you live in currently probably has a much lower monthly payment with 2.8% interest rate. So find out how much you could rent this house at for to see if that makes sense with your current payment. You could than go buy a new primary home and only put 3.5-5% down. You could also have a ADU, basement or a duplex and rent out a portion of the new primary to bring that payment down. You could use a heloc to help with the new downpayment and have some reserves if something goes wrong. I used TD bank for a heloc on a few properties.

Welcome!  I self-manage 4 properties in NY, 2 in FL.  The NY properties I have had luck with section 8 tenants.  I had my 1st turnover currently on all four of them which I've owned since 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.  I'm originally from this area so I have a agent I grew up with and trust.  He places all of the tenants for me and gets paid one month rent and I will pay him twice a year to do walk thru of the property.  I have also gone thru a fair share of handyman, but for now have found a reliable one that helps a lot.  The FL property I found a agent from this platform.  I do the same with having her find the tenant and place them at which point I take over. She also helped me with a rolodex of handyman in that area.  I also use apartmens.com for rent collection.  You can also create the leases from the site and have them put the maintenance requests all thru the platform.  If you have any other questions you can PM, good luck.

Has anyone else in Suffolk County had a much different experience with the Town of Brookhaven rental permit inspection than in the past?  This year they doubled the price to renew from around $250-500.  Normally I would have small items they ask me to fix never more than 1k over the last ten years I've been renting out properties on Long Island.  This year I was very surprised to see what they told me to fix.  It was 12k worth of repairs to the property.  The town told me the increase in price for renewal was because we get so much more for rent.  I've left 4 messages with the person in charge of the building department with no return phone call.  I wanted to see if there was a change to building code and what the inspector was now looking for.  Wanted to see if anyone else has run into the same issues. 

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.

 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.