All Forum Posts by: Collin Garbarino

 Thanks for the word of confirmation!

I've got a question about appliances. 

I'm getting my first property ready for rental in the Houston area, and a contractor who works with a lot of investors told me that I didn't need to put in a refrigerator. He said tenants just trash them, and he said all I needed were an oven-range combo and a dishwasher.

I assumed that tenants would supply their own clothes washer and dryer, but I've never heard of tenants supplying their own refrigerator. This is a SFR, rather than an apartment. Are the expectations different?

I'd appreciate some appliance suggestions from seasoned landlords with SFRs. What appliances do you supply?

I like the Fort Bend REI. Good speakers and small enough to actually meet people.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fort-bend-real-estate...

 I'll be sure to be there in November to hear you!

A few people asked how I found and financed the house. (Even though we're in the Houston area, it's not a flood house.) I might write up a longer post about the deal later, but this deal was a bit of a unicorn.

I started thinking about real estate investing at the end of 2016. I began reading books and listening to the BiggerPockets podcast. I started piling up cash for a down payment.

Since I had real estate on my mind, I started talking about it with people. One of the people who knew I was looking for a property was a neighbor. One day, out of the blue, he approached me and told me that he was planning to retire and move to Florida. He offered to sell me his house.

Because he liked me and my family, he offered the house to us at such a low price we were able to pay cash for it. It's going to need some work, but I've already got so much equity into it on day one, that BRRRRing the property will be easy. I expect to end up with $500 of cashflow with no money into it.

In one sense, this crazy-good deal fell into our laps. But really, if I hadn't been learning about real estate, talking about real estate, and saving up to buy real estate, there wouldn't have been a deal.

The moral of the story: Let people know that you're looking for a deal. You never know who might have one for you.

This morning I closed on my first investment property--a 3/2 SFR in the Houston area.

I just wanted to say thanks to BiggerPockets for all the information and inspiration. Listening to podcasts and reading posts helped me feel like this whole thing might be possible.

Now it's time to start looking for a second purchase...

@Brian Foster, well technically it's inverse condemnation, but I said eminent domain because people would be more familiar with that term.

You're right that the city was in a tough spot, and maybe controlled flooding of one area was better than uncontrolled flooding in another. But the lawyers smell blood, and it seems they have a pretty strong case. Also most people won't have to spend a dime to sue the city because the lawyers will take their cut when they win.

First, flood maps are updated on a fairly regular rotation, so you can mostly trust their accuracy.

Second, much of the worst flooding outside the flood zones was due to the city of Houston intentionally flooding them. Lawsuits are being filed left and right. I wouldn't be surprised if FEMA ends up helping the homeowners sue the city because FEMA won't want to pay for a man-made disaster.

Much of the flooding outside the flood zone was an issue of eminent domain, rather than natural disaster.

Could you briefly share what the top few red flags are?

Time is the big factor here. Inside the city limits of Houston you will wait forever for those inspections. The city will string you along for months and months. You will cry and curse the City of Houston. The city's just swamped. They require permits on even small jobs, and the city has too few resources to handle the number of jobs being done. So you'll wait. And many contractors won't want to wait.

That being said. If the property's in one of the suburbs that pulls permits from a different municipality, you'll probably be okay.