All Forum Posts by: Bruce Lynn

Welcome back to the Metroplex.  Sounds like you will provide great expertise to the right group.

What do you have?  Lot, House, Warehouse?  Doe you have the lien or the deed.

Before you join any brokerage, check their profitability.  Many of the popular companies haven't made money in years if ever.  If they didn't figure out how to make money in some of the best years ever, to me it raises a question if they can even stay in business during the slower years like this year.  If they can't figure out how to make money, how are they going to teach you how to make money.  You can check Google/finance to see if they are profitable or NOT.

I would also suggest not targeting the cheapest brokerages.  Too many people make that mistake.  Surround yourself with successful agents, not ones that are selling 1-2 a year and struggling.  Not to say you can't make money at the cheap brokerages, some do, but rarely do you see the most dynamic, most successful agents who are killing it at small flat fee brokerages, so be careful there.

Best wishes and good luck.

I'm surprised there were 50 livable houses to bid on.

We just don't see that many here in Texas.  If it is a house, it is normally trashed.

Mostly what sells are lots.

Almost no one redeems here, so I'm pretty surprised in AZ you have such a high % of people who redeem and pay off what they owe.  That would be nice.  

What is the exit strategy on them?  Can you sell desert lots?

I'm in Coppell and Southlake , but travel all over North Texas if you want to meet up.

All of the cities you mentioned are probably good targets and where the better action is.

Flips are not easy right now, so I would keep open on the 1st one to any and all those cities. Know all your numbers very well and I would suggest padding time on market and your sales price.  I've seen more flips bust in the last year than ever before.  I've also seen lots of people way over estimate sales price and I'm sure bust their time on market projections.   

Lots of flippers have moved from Dallas area targeting to Denison area and perhaps Sherman over the past 2-3 years it seems.  Prices were better and lots of old houses that needed help.

All the markets you mention have possibilities I expect.

Look at job growth, population growth, wage growth, average income.   That may help you make a decision.

In Texas I expect DFW and Houston to continue to have some of the best dynamics.  I personally think Austin will struggle for a while.  Perhaps same with San Antonio, but just because the overall market may not be favorable, doesn't mean you can't find a deal or the right deal in any of them.

Where do you live now and why wouldn't you invest there?  That's the lowest risk option typically.

If you're thinking $200K, it will be pretty tough to find MF in DFW for that pricing.  Maybe single family.  Nothing wrong with single family.  The only main difference to me in most cases are that you may have a little less vacancy risk in a 2-3-4 vs single family.

Best wishes and good luck.

Quote from @Charlie Krzysiak:

^ Also forgot to mention I was planning on using FHA

There may be better programs than FHA.  You have time now to get a better loan with better interest rates and maybe lower or zero down payment.   Remember with FHA your MIP (mortgage insurance) never goes away for the life of the loan.

Well, you have several months from the time you graduate to the time you start work.

Make as much bank as you can in that period.  Go make $50,000.  Get 3-4 jobs, work 16hours a day, both days on the weekends.  You hustle and grind.  There is no reason you can't do this in College Station or wherever your home town is, or in Dallas.  Rent the worst apartment you can stand, or another room in a house hack.

Have a loan officer pull your real estate credit score today.  If you have anything negative, resolve that NOW.  If your credit score is low, ask them how to improve it enough to get the best interest rate.

Honestly I don't think you really need to be "underwriting" right now other than to have a general idea about how much house you can afford based on your salary, down payment, and savings.  I'd be doing more research on if your buddies or co-workers would rent from you and what their expectations are?  Do they expect private bath, would they pay more for that, what are they willing to pay?  Would they be interested in renting a room in a 5-6 bedroom house.  While you are hustling and grinding to raise the $50,000 nest egg, ask all your co-workers the same thing.  Ask them how far away they live, if they know others renting rooms, how much they are paying.  Maybe if you can, move around every month to check out different operations.

You might also be checking out 1st time homebuyers programs, zero down programs and what the requirements are to do that.  Normally you have to buy in more challenging neighborhoods, so are you willing to do that, and are your friends willing to do that.  Lots of different programs around though, so they're all a little different.

Things work a little differently in Texas because we are a deed state, but in some ways the same.  Owner can request overages within 30 days and get them.  Owner probably has the chance to redeem with a penalty within 2 years.  I don't think there are good stats on this, but I will guess in my experience less than 5% redeem.

Why is that?  Think about the properties that go to auction.  It's not the $5million mansion in Malibu with the owner living in it.  It's the burned down home in Pasadena with a stop work order on it due to all the lead based paint and toxic melted plastic that no one wants to take a dispose of.  So you get to deal with that for the next 5 years while the city, the county, the state, the federal government, and all the political wannabes get all the enviornmental issues sorted out.

Of course there are and will be exceptions of properties in between those two situations, but not everyone and maybe even a small fraction will probably try to solve their problem based on the law you quote.

That is my guess.  It's just a law to perhaps prevent the rare abuse, and make the lawmakers feel good, that grandma didn't accidentally lose her house to an investor who paid a penny for it....and maybe that is the right thing to do anyway.