All Forum Posts by: Daniel Kurkowski

I think that you should find a real estate agent who focuses on investment real estate and owns at least a small portfolio to see if you can work with them. In my experience REI people are 90% talk-about-it losers and you don't want to become one of them.

If the agent you meet isn't willing to spend time educating you about the market, move on.  If they are helpful, their network will be invaluable and a great way to start.

Great advice, you may also be overvaluing a police officer as a tenant.  As far as I know, there is nothing to conclude that this will make for a better tenant than someone in another profession.  If there is a dispute do you think it will be easier or more difficult to resolve if they really want to dig in.

There are definite pros and cons to any kind of tenant, but if you treat everyone similarly you will be in a better spot.

 What data has led you to this conclusion?  You'd be surprised what a successful investment brokerage has access to.  We buy many millions of dollars of real estate at my company and because of that are offered many deals no one else even sees.  I have seen agents consistently source 20+ deals a year for a client and only charge a regular commission.

I would say that what you are doing isn't working on its own and that you have a free opportunity to increase the deals you are exposed to.  What is your perceived downside?

Have you contacted an investment brokerage in your area?  They should be able to find you something viable without having the out of pocket expense.

I think while the economy is doing well, these statistics are artificially high at the moment.  

Part time employment has increased a statistically significant amount since Obamacare was put into place.  By requiring that full time employers provide benefits to their employees there has been a financial incentive for businesses to keep their employees part time.  

If there are less hours available to an individual, other people need to come in to make up the workload which has led to more people having a job, but not necessarily a more productive economy.

Check out the graph here and go back 10 years:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/part-time-employment

I am sensing that this in argument on principal of them charging you without asking?  

If your contract stipulates that this is allowable, whose fault is it for not reading and understanding the contract?  Would this have been something that you would have approved anyway?

My opinion is if it bothers you and they acted in accordance with your agreement just let them know you would like notice in the future and they will try their best to make an exception for you.

If this wasn't OK per your contract I think you have a legitimate complaint though.

I think a lot of people have addressed the general lack of ethics wholesalers commonly employ to sellers so I will pass that over and address the issues investors have with wholesalers.

Many of the wholesalers in my market aren't adding any real value by generating off market deals through some campaign, they are instead locking up deals from the MLS, or FSBOs on Craigslist and then remarketing it themselves as a middle on the deal.

I have passed countless times on properties I have been in touch with the owner about directly because they have another buyer lined up who ends up being a wholesaler who has no intention to close. They will lock it up, misrepresent to newer investors the ARV and hopefully get a deal done, but it is more about throwing deals against the wall and seeing what sticks than anything.

I believe that a well put together and ethical wholesaler business can exist and that someone in that position would only need 3 clients to be extremely successful.

If someone in my market was able to put together a plan to provide me with consistent deals that had reasonable profit margins and understood enough about the process of flipping a home to do so, I would buy every single deal they could produce.

If you are daisy chaining deals together, you're in a whole new universe of non-contribution.

 This.  You can't afford the extra cost of accommodating someone else's bizarre payment schedule and it sets a bad precedent.  Your time running down payments should have a higher value associated with it than what you will lose placing a new tenant.

Only if you want a warranty for yourself does it matter.

@Will T. If one of you choose to live there you could conceivably get a typical residential loan (FHA etc) and need only 3.5% down. If all 3 of you decided to get a place you could potentially control a lot more real estate for your initial capital (assuming you all want to live separately) and buy three different properties. Definitely confirm that with your lender however.

Yes I budget $500 per unit yearly, but that is of course separate from CapEx.