All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Was reading this eye opening thread here....

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/223/topics/39...

and one common occurrence for this guy was finding many dishonest buyers and sellers.  Is this really that common?  I assume places in Canada, like Ontario, British Columbia, Winnipeg, etc, aren't excluded from this?

Do you guys have a methods or tricks that can determine if a buyer or seller is dishonest?  Like the first 5-60 minutes of meeting them?  First couple of questions to ask?  

Thanks in advance!

@Angie Hirata

Hi Angie, great to hear you got back in the game!  Your post makes me curious about BC as I don't know much about the area, aside from crazy high prices and lots of foreign investors.  

What about Vancouver Island?  I remember hearing that the prices are lower there, but that was a long time ago.  Is it the same situation as most of BC?

I was reading up about the BRRRR strategy and I don't understand how the refinance part works. Just wondering if I'm understanding this correctly. Thanks in advance!

Example

Property bought:  $75,000

Renovations:  $30,000

Total:  $105,000

ARV: $150,000

Then you refinance with your lender, and gives you 70%, which is $105,000.   What does this mean?  Your lender, who may be a bank, credit union, etc, will give you $105,000, but for what purpose?  Is it just equity you've built up after paying off the mortgage over time?  

When they give you the amount, does it act like setting up another mortgage?  Like now your making monthly mortgage payments for $105,000?

I'm really confused on this one!

Hey Ryan, welcome to BP and the wonderful world of real-estate investing!  It's nice to see new people enter the Winnipeg community, and so young!  

Also, you want to make 1 million in 5 years?  Definitely possible with the right people supporting you and with a strong ambition and "why"

I'm going to be taking action just like you in a couple of weeks, so I can't really help you with real world experience or a realtor.  However, I can point you towards people who do.  

Go to meetup.com, and sign up for Truly Invested, Team-made real-estate, and MREIA.  Truly invested is having their meeting this Thursday and Team-made is having theirs I think next Monday, so sign up before it passes by.  

As for backgrounds...

Team-made real-estate:  every event is free, offers a incredible coaching program, great people and atmosphere, focuses on relationships.  Great place to start for newcomers.

Truly invested:  First event is free, after that is $45 per month.  Reminds me of BP, about how they don't try to sell you anything at all, and it's just a great, comfortable place to network, connect, form relationships, deals and partnerships.

MREIA: First event is free, after that I think it's over $55 per month now, it increases over time. This group is Stefan Aarnio's group. He's a millionaire REI, winner of many REI awards and Rich dad hall of fame, he's a really big fish in the community. Offers coaching, but the good coaching requires you to be a experienced investor already and have lots of cash for the expensive, higher level coaching. A "get-sh!%-done" attitude and a serious atmosphere.

See you at the upcoming meetings!

I'm in a dilemma and I'm not sure what to do.

I'm interested in buy and hold, residential properties to achieve my goals of $2000 cashflow and $4000 cashflow after that.  I have pursued other areas to achieve these financial goals like network marketing and financial advising, but I truly believe that real-estate investing is my ticket.

I have gone to all local real-estate investing groups in my area and found a few options, but I'm unsure of what to do.

Option #1 - Trial and error.  Become a bird-dog and network with as many investors as possible.  Take these leads and see what I can do with them.  If I can finance it myself, do it.  If not, do a joint venture.  If not, sell the lead.  Keep bird-dogging till I can make my first deal and figure everything on my own.

Option #2 - Cash reserves + mentorship.  Save $5000 and earn $1000 a month for membership with a local, veteran investor.  Start a small business + work to reach these numbers.

Option #3 - Mentorship program - Investing program designed and teached by veteran investors from a local real-estate investing group.  Each of their students have become "big fish" in the area.  Costs $9000-$10,000

Option #4 - Mentorship program - Same thing, but with Stephan Aarnio(big, BIG fish), costs $10,000+

Option #5 - Go to school, give up on goals, and live the employee life.

I was thinking of doing both option 1 and 2 at the same time, but I'm not sure.  Any suggestions and insight in much appreciated!

I understand that having some of your own saved up money($3000 - $5000 worth) is useful in case something bad happens.  I can definitely see this been used for rentals, but what about flips?  

If I was raising capital for a deal, could I add an extra $5000 to the equation to act as cash reserves?  Would I need to use any of my own money as a result?  Or is there something I'm missing?

Thanks in advance!

I've been driving around in my local neighborhood, up and down, side to side, on every street.  There are some properties that I know for sure are distressed.  What I look for is stuff like garbage bag windows, boarded up windows and doors, over-filled mailboxs, unkept garden/flower bed, tall grass and exterior house paint chipping away.

When I've approached some of these houses, many of the home owners were nice people, have no problems with their finances and not looking to sell whatsoever.  There were only a small few actually looking to sell.  So I'm wondering if my perspective of what exactly a distressed property is, is wrong.  

What do you think?  What's a TRUE distressed property?  Could it be that some of the "no problem" home owners actually do have problems and are hiding that information for personal reasons?  Or maybe no problems now, but maybe later?  I know I'm just some random stranger knocking on their door, asking personal questions, so I can understand if they don't want to share such sensitive information.

@Curt Davis

Sorry for the late reply, I just saw this today!

To answer your question, currently I'm just bringing investors a lead.  Once I get comfortable and familiar with that process, I'll move on to negotiating with the seller, inspecting the house more thoroughly and put it under contract.  Basically, going from bird dogging to wholesaling is my plan, one step at a time.

Do you happen to have any resources for learning negotiation?  So far I got some serious games, courses on Lynda and some books.

@Al Rivera

Thanks for the answer Al, I never even considered that.

I actually did a little research online on what kind of food, drink, etc, that absolutely no one can be allergic to.  Basically it came down to salt, water, and breast milk, and I don't think anyone would like a gift of breast milk in a bottle :P

So like coming to a party of 50 people or more, I'm going to bring the gift I intended to bring(bottle of wine for example), even if there might be someone allergic to it.  You can't please everyone, but you can please some.

@Brandon Gentile

Thanks for the answer, I'll definitely ask each seller about those systems!

I also found your comment about how sellers don't know much about their own properties, VERY interesting.  The fact that many people don't understand the things they use every single day.  Their computer, their car, and even their house?  Is that really true? 

Do most home owners not know much about their very own homes?  Especially the ones who've been living there for over a year?  Your home, that you live in almost every single day of the year, and not know much.  It's mind boggling!