All Forum Posts by: Eric Starks

Hey Roland. You have a lot of good advice and some differing openions. All that I would add is to take action now and don't wait. Since you have some time before you move, I believe you can still find some deals on the MLS. Find a good realtor in that area and/or get on the major real estate sites (redfin, realtor.com etc.). Look for properties that have been on the market for 30+ days. Those sellers will be more motivated to negociate. If you are an off-market guy, then go for that as well. That is not me at the moment. Good luck. I'm sure you will do well. This will probably be much easier than serving our county. Thank you for that. I admire everyone in our armed services.

Hey @Rishi Desai. Welcome to BP. The REI group that @Tyler Gibson will tell you about is very good and you should definitely try to attend next month. 

I'm look for a good property manager in the Lake Helen, FL area in Volusia county.  Does anyone have any recommandations? 

Welcome, Ashanti and congrats on starting your journey.  There are a lot of good deals in Lakeland and Polk County in general.  I was just out in Lakeland this morning doing a walkthrough on a duplex.  You will find lots of help from the BP community. 

I am in favor of getting your personal finances in order before investing, whether that is in stocks or real estate. We personally followed Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University to get all our bad debt paid off, our kids college funds strighted out, started investing in stocks and then starting throwing money at our personal residence to get it paid off. This allowed us to pull a large HELOC on our personal residence to help with our real estate investing. We should be closing on our first property at the end of the month. You will find different openinons as you already have. If I had to do it all over again, I would still get out of bad debt first.

I am looking for an RE Lawyer in the Orlando area to go over a partnership agreement. Any suggestions? 

Check with @Bernadeau C. and @Tyler Gibson.  They run a great local meetup in the Orlando area. 

I agree with @Joseph Bafia. Payoff what you can. See if you can get a HELOC. Use other people's money, if you have a good enough deal. I'm looking to buy my first multifamily unit and I plan to use my HELOC for the 20% down. It does eat into your cashflow until you can refinance and pay it off because you have to account for the interest as an operating expense.

Send me a DM and I can put you in touch with a lender that you can check with to see what he says. Also, do you have a primpary home that you can do a HELOC on?

I will be there.