All Forum Posts by: Eric Davenport

Hey everyone,

I am looking at a 3 bed 1 bath house with 10 storage units on the property in a residential neighborhood. When evaluating the property would you use comps for the house and units, the income approach, or a combination of both? 

Also, what would be evaluated when refinancing a property like this, would the banks take into account the storage or only the house? If it's possible, it would be really cool to BRRRR the house and storage units (add new garage doors, locks, etc) and add value then refinance.

Thanks!

@Caleb Heimsoth and @Jill F. that really does seem to be the best way to manage with no smoking, I like the vaping idea though. We are investing in Central KY where smoking is unfortunately heavily common, most of the houses that we visited before buying all had smoking inside. I am with you all and really do not want smoking in my units but am afraid a no smoking policy would limit potential tenants and raise my vacancy rates greatly. Maybe I need to budget a higher vacancy rate or choose somewhere else to invest!

Hello All, When learning about the BRRRR strategy, I have only heard of people buying and rehabbing with cash. Is it possible to first buy with a conventional loan and then refinance after a seasoning period? I could buy a deal with cash, but would not have enough for the rehab. If I could buy with a down payment, I would most likely have enough cash for the rehab. Thanks for any insight or response!

Thank you all for the responses. This is a good lesson in know what you buy before you do. The cash flow is good enough to put up with it for a while until her lease is up. What are your opinions on smoking in the units? Do you restrict it, or allow smoking?

Hello everyone,

My wife and I are soon to be closing on a duplex with an inherited tenant that smokes inside the building. She is in the downstairs unit which rents for more than the unit we will stay in upstairs. 

We are doing everything we can to our half to rid of the smoke from the previous tenant (wiping walls with STP, priming with kilz, etc.) but the smell is still awful. I don't even want to put in new carpet or paint until something changes otherwise it will soak into the walls and carpet and our half will always smell like cigarettes. 

She is 4 months in to a year long lease with a Section 8 housing voucher. What are my options? Resign a lease that includes no smoking inside? And if so, do I have to go through HUD to change the lease?

Thank you!

@John Leavelle Good relationships are crucial. How many BRRRR properties have you done and how many are you usually doing a year?

@Matt Jones This is a very smart technique and how I analyze my deals when running numbers. My only fear is that when starting out something big will cause us to go in the negatives on our investment before we have that reserve saved up. Have you had a situation early on where something like this happened? Like @Anna Belov said you could always reimburse yourself. 

Anna, when you say that you add this budget to your down payment, do you put this cash into a savings account for when these repairs or rehabs need to happen?

@Omar Khan You're right, it does really depend on these things. We are pretty risk adverse and do not have a large HELOC or LOC we could pull from for repairs so we will probably go the more conservative route and put a % in savings.

That could definitely work for what I need when looking for deals on the MLS. But I am planning to find and make offers on properties off the MLS for which I wouldn't be using a realtor. So I had heard of this technique of becoming an assistant for a small fee and having full access to the MLS. This would allow me to find ARV without wasting a realtor's time on finding comps for a property off the market that I will pay cash for. I know redfin is a good source of sold properties from the MLS, but is it as comprehensive?

Hello Everyone,

I have a friend who is a licensed real estate agent in KY but has moved on to another career and is no longer active but still licensed. I know there are potentially fees and repercussions of handing out your username and password, and I would want to avoid getting her in trouble. I have heard that you can become an assistant and gain MLS access for $200 and taking a class.

Is this true? And if so, is it potentially dangerous to her license or liable to any fees?

Thank you all!

Hello Everyone!

I am a new investor and closing on an FHA duplex soon that my wife and I will be house hacking to start out our investing career, super excited about that!

My plan is to progress further using the BRRRR strategy and finance the initial buy and rehab with cash from HELOC's borrowed from relatives. One thing that I need to research further is the process of buying a house quickly with cash. What is the process like buying quickly with cash and what kind of contracts/forms are needed? I am currently searching for attorneys to work with but would really like to be able to tell them what I need rather than asking questions and spending a lot of $$/hour.

Even pointing me in the right direction with my research would be great as I'm a little bit at a loss as to where to start. I know BP is a great place to look but have only found articles and threads that talk about the strategy of quick cash buying and not the nitty gritty details of everything that goes into it. And where can I find the correct contract/forms needed, is this something the attorney will supply, or something I can provide and they can look over and use?

Thank you all so much for any insight or response!