All Forum Posts by: Corey Schaecher

So we are adding two 4-family buildings to our St. Louis portfolio. Originally the insurance quote was about $1,200 each building. And then the agent came back and said that because we have more than 9 units total, they have to insure them differently and the price to insure the same building jumped to $3,400 each.

Does anyone have experience with this? What’s the rationale and is there a way to avoid this? These units are owned by their own LLCs, but that still doesn’t matter because there are more than 9 units associated with the members of the LLCs (according to the agent).

Any insight here is much appreciated.

Thanks for all your work in organizing these and getting the St. Louis folks together, @MeganGreathous, Saint Louis / STL investors should come and chat it up, make some connections, and learn from other local investors.

Hello all, 

We just finished a rehab in the Holly Hills/Princeton Heights area and looking for our next project.  We are interested in finding a small (or potentially medium-sized) apartment building in the St. Louis area (St. Louis County, St. Louis City, West County, St. Charles, etc.), but we prefer not to be in North City.  A value add component through a rehab is preferable and we'd consider a complete renovation depending on the location, size, and cost.

Please let me know if you have anything or, if not, please keep me in mind if anything comes up.

Thanks!

Kory Hannah how were you finding trusted and reliable contractors. We’ve had a pretty rough time on that front. And how does the STL Real Estate Group work? I’ve seen the signs on properties around STL.

@Scott Schaecher, my personal favorite was when they moved the washer and dryer to the middle of the basement for the first floor unit and just painted the concrete floor around them, so when we moved it back there was an unpainted rectangle in the middle of the room.  Granted this was very possibly the most minor thing these guys screwed up, but sometimes you have to laugh at the situation - oftentimes after throwing a few things and begging your bystander toddler children not to repeat the words they might have just heard daddy say.

Mark, 

There are other investors on BP that are better to speak on the Florissant area than me.  I would search "Florissant" in the forum and see what people are saying, there is plenty discussion about that.  My personal investment focus does not go above highway 64 if you look at map of St. Louis.  Florrissant, which falls above that highway 64 marker for me, is an area that was a very popular and growing suburb and nice place for families to live in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 90s I'm told.  I have several friends who grew up there.  It remains a working class area and has quick access to highways.  

But to my understanding, Florissant and the surround areas were a victim of "white flight" in the 90s and there was a significant financial retraction in North St. Louis - some municipalities hit harder than others.  Including Ferguson, which as you likely know made national headlines in recent years, which is about 4 miles Southeast of Florissant.  Here's a link to an article in TIME on what they describe as white flight in St. Louis that was written after the Michael brown shooting - i make no representations regarding its contents or state that i agree or disagree with what's discussed in it, it just came up in a google search for white flight and st. Louis, nothing more.  I'm sure i could have found articles with other opinions, statements, discussions, etc. but this was the first link.

Certainly I would not turn down a deal i thought was worthwhile simply because it was in the City of Florissant.  The specific street and surrounding blocks for this house, i have no knowledge.  But I would make sure you do your research on the local schools, crime reporting in the area (you can see crime maps and get information from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the City of St. Louis, www.homefacts.com, etc.).  Search the address in Zillow and Redfin filtered for houses for rent to see what other people are charging for similar houses. 

As far as a home inspector, we most recently used Lou Voss from Countywide Professional Home Inspections and were very pleased and will go back to him again.  His contact information is (BP won't let me post his phone number of e-mail address so PM me for that if you can't find it):

Lou Voss
Countywide Professional Home Inspections
1038 Pebble Beach Dr
O’Fallon, Mo 63366

I would also confirm that if the repairs done required permits, that the permits were pulled and inspections obtained.  You can get a lot of information from property in St. Louis County by searching the property address at https://revenue.stlouisco.com/ias/

I have not heard of them, but a search of the Missouri Secretary of State's website for "Vaughn Investments" returned two entities: 

(1) Vaughn Investments, LLC - a Missouri Corporation formed in 2007 whose registered agent is:

Vaughn, Sheila Ann
899 Locksley Manor Dr
Lake St Louis, MO 63367

(2): Vaughn Investments, which was a D/B/A name for Vaughn Investments, LLC above. I did not see any entities named Vaughn Investments & Property Management or any fictitious name filings / "doing business as" Vaughn Investments & Property Management.

I would, however, suggest that for any person or business that you are considering doing business with in Missouri that you search their personal name and the name of their business on the state courts' electronic records website: https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet and clicking "litigant name search."  You will not have access to the actual court documents but you will be able see information about each case that has been filed by clicking through the various tabs.

Including the person's first and last names and middle initial in the search box after selecting "litigant name search" and keeping the default to search for records in "all participating courts" will ensure the most accurate results. 

St. Louis can be a very block-by-block city depending on where you are investing so I would recommend that every out of state investor talk to someone local and get additional opinions on the area in which they are buying.

I hope this is helpful and good luck.

Corey 

@Heather Henriques, if you're using the website from a computer, you can edit your post by clicking on the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the post you want to edit. 

Companies have been suing people who post negative reviews, so if you post a negative comment about any person or business it is best to stick strictly to the facts and what you can prove.  Colorful commentary, flippant statements, subjective opinions, and unsupported assertions are what seem to get people in trouble.  Just something to always keep in mind these days.

@ScottSchaecher, you can edit your post by clicking on the ellipses in the right hand corner.....

Joe, 

I have a similar situation with a single-family home in Brentwood, it cashflows about $650 a month which is great, but my biggest regret is that in purchasing it I tied up $55K in cash to get my 80/20 for financing when i could've been using that cash for BRRRR investing instead. In addition to looking at the issue of whether you could just be getting better cashflow, you might also consider the opportunity cost of tying up that $40K to get your financing and whether you could be doing more with that money by putting it into other opportunities. Now that i'm doing a BRRRR on a separate property, I see what i could've done with that $55K instead of just having it sitting there as equity.