All Forum Posts by: Chris Mcdonald

Did this one sell?

Baltimore realtor here lol. Yes Baltimore has tons of opportunity and tons of terrible/dangerous areas. Make sure to do your due diligence and you'll be successful. 

Pros and cons to everything - PA might be a little less expensive but taxes are higher. Maryland might be more expensive but better appreciation. It's great to learn from podcasts, books, etc.... but do your first deal and you will learn 10 fold, just try to keep it relatively safe -low risk. 

Hey @Dan Grove true BRRRR's are hard to come by these days. First I think the word is out on the technique, market has been competitive for past 3-4 years, and prices are high. Your best bet will be to connect with wholesalers or find off market properties. If you want to check out some properties on the West side of Baltimore hit me and I'll show you some semi winners.

I"m on the west side of Baltimore, if you ever want to connect or chat DM and I can share my experiences. 

If you are just starting out that is a pretty big undertaking. I think I would personally start off with turnkey rentals or easy rehabs. Do you live in an owner occuppied property? If no, starting off with a house hack is by far the easiest transition to being a landlord/investor. 

My advice, start finding local experts who can help you  - lender, realtor, etc.. and lean on these people to help you with the next steps. First step is to get a pre-approval to determine your max spend then you can determine where you are a comfortable monthly. Once you have this data, now you can narrow down your search to price, location, and style. Now you wait, search, tour houses. You need to see the bad to recognize the good. I hate when I meet a client as a realtor and I know the house is a winner on our first tour. I see a lot of houses so I can quickly tell winners vs losers in Baltimore. Tour open houses and get feel for the market and be ready to take action. When the right house pops up, you need to execute!!!

Baltimore has treated me well! We weather most financial storms well due to our port and proximity to DC. We also have a wide variety of price points from $75,000 - $XXXXXXXX, variety of neighborhoods, multi units to rowhouses. Opportunity for pros or beginners. 

And yes, I love SD as well. Lived in PB for 5 years but from MD so back to get a few more rentals then back to the beach paradise. 

For me it's a minimum of $500, but I'll consider $450+. Anything less than this in my opinion is not going to work out as a positive investment. Investments are organic living breathing things - tenants don't pay, things break, vacancy, etc.... So if you are breaking even, most likely you are losing money. This is for my single unit townhouse/rowhouses

I love triplex's and have several - for these I like to net around $1,500 total. 

The only time I would being willing to break even or maybe even lose a little is if I'm banking on appreciation. For example, if I can buy a house in San Diego for $800,000 break even on rent for 5 years and anticipate it to be worth $1.4 in the future, maybe I would consider this but most likely this is not going to happen.

My favorite credit card is Capital One cash back. I like getting cash back and spending it how i want. Also nice to have a home depot card just in case you need it or wait to get the Home Depot or Lowe's card when you need to spend $2000 or more cause typically 10% off first purchase.