All Forum Posts by: Ericka G.

After over a year of looking for a new personal residence, I'm now considering building from scratch.  J. Tucker was recommended to us but I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with them or can recommend any other custom home builders in the metro Atlanta area?  

We'll likely be building in Cascade and don't want a cookie cutter cul de sac development but instead are eyeing 1 acre + plots of land that will allow for a bit more of a custom feel with privacy.  If anyone has thoughts on building from scratch versus finding something existing and rehabbing, please chime in!

@Michaela Manco NACA is an awesome program if you have a lot of time and patience. Wasn’t aware you could use it to buy MF properties. I sat through an initial training a few years ago in hopes my hubby could use the program to buy his first property. I didn’t qualify because I already owned a property. I thInk that is their only requirement - not owning any other property currently. I think they finally reached out to him to move to the 2nd phase of their process 2-3 months after applying and sitting through the first training, so you’ll definitely want to start the process BEFORE getting excited about a specific property. They also required a ton of paperwork...but if you’re willing to put up with it all, it’s an awesome deal

@Jeb Brilliant I think Belize is a great potential investment location...cheap, English speaking, great weather, direct flights from cities like Atlanta. However, when I was there folks were grumbling about potential political unrest in that Guatamala has been trying to “annex” or take over Belize for years...not sure jow accurate that is, but you may want to look into the stability of the government too before investing. I think Placencia is a better investment than the cayes because there is a good flow of both local and foreign tourists there whereas the cayes felt 100% dependent on foreign tourism and were pretty dead when we went in Oct.

Anthony Gjolaj I second the recommendations of Westland and Livonia, I’d add Garden City, parts of Romulus, and perhaps Taylor as prices are still low but appreciating rapidly - safe, working class, solid areas that have ok schools. Have purchased 4 rentals in these areas and have been very happy with the returns and appreciation. I’ve also found a great team of people who help us self manage long distance...suburban Detroit is a great place to start investing. Happy to share my Realtor’s info, PM if interested.

Kyle Doney had a similar situation where a neighbor’s tree fell on one of my rental properties after I had notified the tenant of the tree being a risk. Tree was knocked over in a storm and leaning dangerously against a power line and another tree. I slipped a note in the box and on the door. Tenant contacted me immediately and let me know hw had notified the owner and gave me the owner’s contact info. Tree fell on my property the very next day doing $500 worth of damage (not including the $1k I was quoted to get the tree removed/cleaned up). I contacted the owner and at first he insisted it wasn’t his responsibility but since I had notified him and we are neighbors, he eventually agreed to pay half of the tree removal cost, no insurance was involved. I prob could have gotten them to pay for half of the damage to the house as well but we’d already agreed on an amount before I realized there was additional damage. I think in situations like this, it will likely only cost you a few hundred dollars to do the neighborly thing. Ask her to get an estimate and then offer to pay half of that, explaining that technically you aren’t responsible to pay anything but are just trying to be neighborly. If she is reasonable she will accept that and everyone can move on without any bad blood. Imagine being in the other person’a shoes and how you’d want a neighbor to respond. I’m not saying pay the whole thing, but offering to pay a little will probably go a long way to diffusing her outrage. Good luck with it.

Another GREAT podcast. I found Mark’s story fun, informative, and inspiring...can relate to loving your day job but wanting the freedom and stability that come with real estate investment - no W2 job is “safe” these days. Also great tips on using price per square foot as a good way to identify potential deals and riding out market dips. His story has me considering making the leap into larger MFs using a property manager - wish he had talked more about that transition in terms of setting up an LLC, getting financing, and finding the right PM.

I vote Belize or St Kitts - both English speaking, safe, inexpensive, and offer direct flights to/from major airports like Atlanta and Miami...

Quick update: we decided not to move into the bigger house in the burbs (it didn’t appraise and the seller wouldn’t come down) and are happily still living below our means. The Financial freedom that comes with living modestly is so sweet it will take a very special house to get us to move at this point. ALSO, similar townhome/same community as ours just sold for $30k MORE than what we had ours under contract for a month ago, so I feel like the low new house appraisal causing our deal to fall through was a blessing in disguise. We’ll see what the future holds.

Mindy Bowden get a tune up and ride it out. We’ve had several units last years past their expected lifespan. Also is a good idea to have a portable unit or two in hand in case of emergency. They sell them at Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc and you could always buy/install same day if the unit dies. We moved into one of our rentals (HVAC original to 1950s) and the AC “died” last summer...got 3 portable units and loved them so much that we still haven’t replaced the HVAC (heat still works perfectly). Our energy bill was cut in half and they work really well. Your tenants might discover they like portable better too. Just research which are the good ones as they aren’t all so great I hear.

Charles Soper in case it helps, the 2 escalation clauses I’ve seen offered $1k over the next best offer up to their cutoff. Doesn’t have to be a huge amount over the next person to win the deal