All Forum Posts by: Emily Lowery

Hello all,

I would like to get started flipping houses in Central Florida. I need to find a general contractor.  What is the best way to go about it or does anyone have any recommendations for me?

Any help would be appreciated. 

Hi Elizabeth,

You won't need to pay for access for MLS if you're only selling these properties. You will need to join a broker to have an active license. A question you can ask the broker is if they require you to be a Realtor. If they do, then you would have to pay for the MLS services and become a member of the Realtor association. If they don't, then you wouldn't have to worry about the extra fees. Hope this help!

hello!

Congrats on starting your investor journey!

I would recommend "Never Split the Difference," to understand and gain negotiation. The book "The Tax & Legal Playbook," is also a good read and helps gain more of an understanding of how to handle the fundamentals and gives an extensive analysis of The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017. 

I would love to hear more about your duplex and how you got started. Let me know what you think of these books, I can always recommend different ones. 

Hey Matt,

How to get on track to invest in real estate using college:

It's nice to hear someone has the same dream I did starting out in college! Where I ran into issues were the qualifications on loans; I didn't meet any of them at 18 years old and that was very frustrating. I used my time in college to improve my credit score, find valuable employment (in the eyes of the organizations of the loan), research and connect with valuable people.  

I spent countless hours researching which credit cards to get, how to obtain an LLC, which licenses I should have before graduating, ect.. One thing I would do different is I would join a real estate, investor club, or any subject that interested me and quickly find like minded people that have the same dream I do. I found these people my senior year of college because I began to become more involved in school my junior year. I would also recommend going into real estate or finance as a major. When I was first starting my investing business I reached out to the professors I valued as people and professionals and they were all more than happy to sit down with me and go over the proforma, timeline and just give small pieces of advice that changed my business strategies over time. By start my business I mean I found a partner, we decided everything we wanted to do with the project and then shared the information with professor to refine it and reality check us along the way.

I understand that going to school when you feel like you're ready to begin your career is frustrating and can seem like a waste of time. However college is where I met all of my current business partners and I could take time to do a lot of research. 

On the other side you so that you can invest now: 

The down sides are, being 18, having no credit, little down payment capital, lack of knowledge. To 'fix' these downsides: read, start working in the profession (ie. real estate agent, wholesaler, leasing agent), which probably would give you money for the down payment. Become a deal provider, have high professionalism and know what you're talking about, that way you can't be ignored for your age. If you have something investable people will show up but if you have something investable and credible then they'll be impressed and invest. 

Delayed gratification, research and create a plan with an extremely refined business strategy will be key to beginning the investing journey now rather than after college. If you have any questions or just want to have someone to bounce ideas off of please reach out!

Good luck!

Hi Cristian, 

A Direct lender pulls money together in house and works directly with the buyer. This way the lender and borrower are able to make a personal connection. The pros would be that the direct lender would know if they'll lend to you are not quickly, cut out some fees, work faster, have some flexibility on their lending criteria.  Rocket Mortgage is a great place to start researching different lenders. 

A Mortgage broker is able to pull funds from different sources. They are essentially the middle man for buyers to shop around for different lenders which are matched based off criteria. The pros of working with a mortgage broker is there are a lot of options when it comes to who the loan could be with and the criteria for different lenders. While the cons would be the fees associated with them however if you are worried about the qualification, mortgage brokers tend to have more options for less traditional buyers.

In short, it depends on your qualifications and preference. Both can be good options based off good service. Since your main priority is to save money I would recommend  looking into direct 

Ideally you would like to work with a broker with a direct lender capacity. 

Hi @David Barton,

Congratulations on your degree in real estate and working towards your first investment property. I am in a similar position to you when it comes to looking for our first property. I have multiple mentors and I would like to share how I started. I first reached out to professors from UCF in the real estate program. They have all been extremely helpful when it comes to finalizing plans and making sure all questions about the worth of the investment are answered. This is when I expanded into my connections that I have made throughout college. I reached out to them and spoke about the project and more of the specifics that are needed to know if the decision is worth it. I am a realtor so I would go ahead and have an offer written up with the contingency that make me comfortable with the specific deal. I would also recommend figuring out what value you would provide for the mentor.  If you have put in the work and done enough research, there comes a point where it feels like there's too many options and there's always more money to be made in another deal and you just need to start somewhere. Good luck and please reach out if you have any questions.

Emily