All Forum Posts by: Mike Seluk

For this month -

- Attend this months REIA meeting, but actually become a member this time. Not much of a goal, I know. What I'd *really* like to find out at this meeting is if people are flipping or just acquiring to hold. I want to know how people are working this area to make money.

- Shop around for some financing. I'm in really good shape as far as credit goes, I'm just wondering what they're going to say about me wanting to finance an investment property.

- Meet up with the agent I've been in contact with to either discuss what I'm looking to do, or to actually inspect some properties.

- Get my unused bedroom ready in case I'd like to get a room mate for more income.

I think that's pretty good for now.

Hi Darice, nice to see some others from SWFL on here. Drop me a PM sometime and let me know what you're up to. Have a good one!

-Mike

John - from reading that, it makes me wonder what the wholesale money lenders charge for their money. And if a bank goes under, does the WML lose out big? I wouldn't expect the depositers interest to be a huge expense to the bank, since that's pretty small percentage-wise, right?

I'm probably oversimplifying this, but moving up the chain, wouldn't the wholesale money lenders be inclined to lower their fees to make sure people won't default? Seems like they're killing the goose that laid their golden egg.

I appreciate the explaination!

OK, I can work with that. I've been looking all around here for both flip and rental opportunities, but I'm not rushing since it's going to be my first deal (outside of purchasing my primary residence).

In fact, one potential flip I had my eye on just sold - a little disappointing, but I'm going to keep following it to see if it actually was a good deal or not.

Thanks for the reply - I'll keep saving while I search!

Very often I read about people getting the ball rolling without having much cash on-hand. A good friend of mine just did this. He just bought his first place to flip and he did it with no income varification and very little money saved up.

I've been looking into a couple properties to flip myself, and it seems like there are loan types that allow you to get the money you need for the repairs (as my friend is doing). Or you'd finance the property first, get an appraisal for the ARV and refi based on that (is that correct or am I way off?).

I've been saving for a while and find myself in a wierd situation, I think. If I'm going to flip something, I probably don't need much of my own money because if all works out well, I'll be borrowing the money for a short time (I think). On the flip side, things are still too expensive to cash-flow if I want to hold and rent, and I don't quite have enough money to put into it up-front to make for a small enough monthly payment to make the cashflow numbers work well enough.

Sooo...keep saving? Look harder for flips?

EDIT: I just realized that using cash as a down payment can allow me to get out of having to pay PMI - that's a plus!

I'm still a noob when it comes to the economic aspects that affect the RE market, and something I've been wondering is about ARMs. Do banks really NEED to up interest rates, or is it just a way to get more money out of people?

I would expect that there's more to it, because if so many people are on the fence to begin with, I'd think the banks would say, 'We're going to lose a LOT of people if we try to get more out of them."

Are the banks actually upping the rates, or are they responding to what the FED does?

If the answers to these questions are too complicated, just tell me what book I should go stick my head in. :oops:

Thanks for thr breakdown TC! It's good to hear it from someone who's also holding down a regular job. I've been wondering how many people do that.

That's something I'd read elsewhere, and it makes sense, but I can't really see it going THAT low where I am. I've already heard of sales picking up around here, and that almost makes me wonder if there's a second wave of investors looking to pick up the pieces.

If you're wondering about the SW FL market, there's a pretty good report on it at http://www.topagent.com/ Download the State of the Market Report.

I got mine completed this evening.

I went to the local REIA meeting and met with some people who are DOING it. I asked about rentals, and heard the news that I was expecting to hear: cash flow ain't happening in this area if you finance. But the part that was surprising to me was that MANY people were A-OK with the idea of buying and holding, and renting to break even or even at a loss. I didn't get the impression that there were many landlords there.

Most people seemed interested in how to acquire properties, though I couldn't tell what they wanted to do with the properties once they got them. No one mentioned rehabbing, or renting - it's like they were all planning to hold.

There was some very, very market specific information there that really exceeded my expectations. Just about anything I'd been wondering about was answered there. As far as our local market is concerned, they painted a picture that indicated that we may be entering a period where buying is a very, very good idea.

This is true...there is an absolute value to being goal/answer driven. If one person doesn't know, see if they know who knows...lol.

Another question along the same lines...

Can you sort of reverse-refi? Normally, people refi to adjust their terms, take money out and lower their payment, right? Let's say I wanted to rent out the place I live in now, for whatever reason. Could I put a bunch of money IN to get a far lower payment to make it a positively cashflowing property?