All Forum Posts by: David Sosna

Hello everybody. Finally getting serious about real estate investing. Just joined PRO, got myself a couple great business partners, and a very talented mentor. I'm looking for contractor recommendations in the Phoenix, AZ area. When I clicked on Tools--Find a Contractor, the process seems to be for a specific project. Currently we are just looking to interview prospective contractors so we have a few that may be ready when our first closing happens. Also, we are developing our list of screening questions for said contractors. Does anyone have a good screening list of questions they like to use for contractors? Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance.

@John Hickey 2012

@George Mevawala This, indeed, is very positive. I live in Phoenix and have recently started a business with one focus on airbnb/short term rentals. We are excited to venture into this arena but honestly when we simply look at the typically available free stats on the web (average occupancy, average nightly cost, etc) the numbers just don't add up how we'd like. We have friends who host and say they're doing great but as of yet we haven't been able to pick their brains as to the details. I'd love to set up a meeting to pick your brain and maybe see some numbers to keep me in the game. Much appreciated.

Peace

David Sosna

Desert Garden Properties

@Lance Robinson yes it does help thank you. Yes it’s happening everywhere but what sparked the question was my neighborhood just south of Camelback and north of Van Buren and west of 24th St and east of central. More specifically even, south of Campbell and north of Thomas, west of 16th St. and east of 7th St. 

Yes, @Ola Dantis please elaborate on this business model you mention in your post.

@Joe Splitrock and @Eric James and anyone else who read my OP and were a little put off by my "culturally vacant" comment, I humbly apologize for my choice of words. Although I did not mean how it sounds, I can definitely see how it sounded negative. That is the last thing I want since I hope that you can see from the post as a whole that my intentions are good. I was attempting to be a little clever choosing the term vacant (as in real estate) but it came off wrong. You both, and a few others, bring up several very valid points for the positivity of gentrification, or at least should I say neighborhood revitalization. Thank you both for calling me out on my poor choice of words and being polite about it.

Thank everyone!!! @Account Closed lmao

Thank you @Andrew Kerr and @Dave Olverson for your timely responses and words of wisdom. 

A big dilemma we are dealing with it gentrification and what it means to us. We want to invest in our own neighborhood for many reasons. We want to be close to our houses. We love it here. We love the mix of middle class and lower income people, ethnic families, etc. That brings us to our gentrification dilemma. When we talk about buying a house and flipping it, or even just fixing it up a bit and renting it out for what seems reasonable for our business, we feel like we are pricing out the very people that give this neighborhood flavor and character. If we just buy 150-200k houses and turn them into 350-400k houses like so many others are doing around here then we'll just turn this neighborhood into something more financially valuable but culturally vacant. Are we just sappy do-gooders? Is there no money to be made for people like us who still want to provide decent living spaces for lower income people so they aren't priced out of the neighborhood? Do we just need to start some nonprofit because we are being unrealistic thinking there is a business model that fits our values? Is anyone else dealing with thinking this through or has done so?

Hi everyone. My business partner (ok, let's be honest, my girlfriend) and I started Desert Garden Properties, LLC, and bought two houses. Well, we only meant to buy one, but that's another story. Why the profile picture in the mountains of Idaho? Because last Fall we were pretty much planning on selling our own two houses, buying some sort of small RV, and backpacking around US National Parks and Wildnernesses using the RV as our base. We figured we'd start out doing that for about a year or so and see what happens, but we realized we'd have nothing to come back to and our cool houses (well, my average house and her really cool house) would be gone. Instead we decided to work toward building a business that we figured, if we worked hard at for a few years, and stayed in shape, we'd still be able to do our travel plan but be making money while on the trail and have something to come back to. Every few days we're like, "Now why didn't we just go backpacking?"

I'm 52 and from Boston and Melissa is 41 and from Philadelphia but we now call Phoenix, AZ our home. We love the desert. I work for Trader Joe's and while it's a cool company, it's still trading hours for dollars with someone else telling you when you have to work. No thank you. Not afraid of work by any means. I just want to do it more on my own terms. Melissa has several jobs which she loves including helping to run a wilderness education literacy-based program and teaching wilderness first aid. 

We love hosting and cooking for people and taking travelers on local hikes and mountain bike rides, etc. We like idea of providing people with a positive experience of living in or visiting Phoenix. Which brings us to our goals and dilemmas. We want to run an Airbnb. We want to run several Airbnb's. We want to be busy with visitors and then close up the places (or rent them for medium terms like for traveling nurses or project managers) and then take off and backpack for weeks at a time. We are interested in single-family and small multifamily. We have a ridiculous amount to learn. We are both very handy, quick learners, and have a few good resources up our sleeves. For instance her parents have owned a lot of real estate their whole lives and own a tax accounting business. I am shameless and bold and just introduce myself to people even though I feel like I have nothing to offer other than enthusiasm. I may have recently found a mentor and am very excited about that.

Oh and I heard about the podcast from Moises Acevez, a friend I work with who just got his real estate license. I didn't listen to my first podcast until weeks after he mentioned it to me. I now listen constantly and started reading some of the blogs and here I am joining the forums. I'll probably upgrade the membership soon, too. 

Thanks for reading if you made it through.

Peace,

David