All Forum Posts by: Justin Johnson

Yes I did.  And recently, I just purchased my second "home" where I will be living for a while and got that same duplex in the charge above fully rented out as of 2024-03-01!  Welcome to BP!

OMG Thank you!  Didn't even think about that!  Thank you so so much!

Thank you.  Even if you are going to pay back the person whom you borrowed money from you would still classify it as a "gift"?

I have talked to several banks about the possibility of borrowing money from friends and/or family to come up with the difference needed to make a downpayment for a house/multi-family property and would just pay the family member/friend back later. I was told that was a major "no-no" due to that being considered mortgage fraud. I hear of people doing this all the time without it being mortgage fraud. So, my question is, how do you do this legally with an LLC? There have been many times where I'm just a few thousand short on a downpayment on a good property in a good location and missed it because banks said no to the deal.

Thanks, everyone!

JJ

I know this thread is a little older but...This is a very helpful thread!

I have the opportunity to buy my first off the market property and the neighbors have named the place "meth mansion".  I don't think that it's a LAB but believe that meth was cooked there a few times before the landlord/city got involved.  I know there is rehab that needs to be done.  How do I find a remediation company that deals with meth/drug problems?  Newbie here looking to buy my second property, the price is right on this one, and *could* be even better with negotiations.

Hello!  So, I have an opportunity to buy my first off the market property and I wanted to first get some advice from some people who may have been down this path.  The property is a quad, which is exactly what I have been looking for, but the neighbors have lovely dubbed it "meth mansion".  My questions are

Is it worth trying to rehab a known drug/meth house?

What kind of work and rehab needs to be done?  Is it a *total* rehab of everything (completely gutting the place and redoing it from the inside out)?

What questions should I ask the current owner who is extremely motivated to sell the place?

What kinds of environmental studies/inspections should be performed?

I am just trying to get good grasp on things to see if it even is worth looking at.  I could make a huge impact on the neighborhood, but at the same time, it could be a horrible nightmare of a project/property.

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
JJ

@Matt Charette congrats on your first deal! It was 22 months for my first deal. I had started reading about finance and investing, then real estate, and from the moment I stated reading about real estate, I started working toward that goal. I spent about a year and a half analyzing, learning, and looking for that first deal while I built up capital to buy it.

I am very interested I knowing how your out of state investment goes. this is an area that I'm VERY interested in. I have family and friends in other states and have been wanting to branch out (later).

Good job I the first step!

Hey, @MarieChele Porter, I as Bjorn mentioned, assumed that them putting the information on the application was consent for me to call their references.  You will still need to get a letter of consent to confirm employment details with their employer HR, but that is pretty easy to get from a potential tenant, if they really want to rent your apartment.  I always look up the business they listed as their employer and verify the number against what they provided me though!

Thank you, @Bjorn Ahlblad, that is how I looked at it.  I don't ever remember a landlord/employer asking me for my consent to call references.

@Manraj Singh, I was not around for the merger between cozy and apartments.com.  I do use it for the entire process.  The screening, application, background, I am even talking to my rep to see if I can get some features added to their site that would be a "great to have" thing for landlords.  Rent collection, I have it setup to where the tenants can pay through apartments.com, Google Pay, a deposit account, or mail/hand me a money order or cashier's check (no personal/3rd party).

Hello, BP!

I have read about getting others to help you with investing in properties, but I'm a little shaky on the concept.  Recently, I've had several people tell me that they would like to invest with me, so I am trying to educate myself about how to do this.  My question is, how do I go about getting someone to help me with the monies to buy a property?  There are some properties that I really want to purchase for rental properties, problem is, I don't have the capital.  I have some friends and family that could help put up the cash with me but how do they profit from the deal?  I can't pay them back because that's mortgage fraud and that's something I never want to get anywhere in the same timezone with.

When you purchase a property with someone else investing in it with you, how do you both profit from it? They give you a rather large chunk of change and then it's tied up for a few years and they get a ROI after the sale of said property, but what if there's no sale?

Sorry, I'm having a hard time asking the right questions because this is a very new area for me.  Of course I'd talk with a lawyer about all of the legalities, I'm just trying to figure out how to get the ball rolling.

Thanks,
JJ

Exactly what everyone else has said.

Educate yourself!  There are many books in the bookstore here on BP, there are books at Books-a-Million/Barnes & Noble/Amazon, there's websites and blogs.  Read everything you can about the topic, study the terminology and the calculations that are used to analyze properties.  Oh yeah, also, keep asking questions and reading the forums on BP.  This community was the biggest help in my getting started and continued research/networking.

I think, equally as important, if you haven't already: get your finances under control. Save, save, save and be diligent on paying yourself without compromise.

Finally, start putting into practice what you are learning from your self education.  Just because you are not buying that $2 million dollar home, doesn't mean you can't analyze it to see what the numbers are.  Get on Zillow or Red Fin or some other website that lists homes for sale in your area and start analyzing them, run the numbers, play with the numbers.  Better yet, find a realtor that has experience in the area(s) of real estate investment that you're looking at and have them sign you up for an automatic email notification.  Analyze everything even if the second you see it it's a hard "NOPE!"

To get you started, check out the guides section: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides