All Forum Posts by: Gabriel Kolendrekaj

@Frankie Paterno 6 deals in and I’m averaging 115k per flip. Most of my purchases have been below 290k with my most expensive being 470k. There’s deals out there man just gotta look in the right places. I’m hosting a meetup here in Staten Island in April. I’m gonna bring some industry experts to speak to everyone. And gonna get some material together for everyone that shows where to get deals from, how to finance them etc. Look it up in the meetup section of bigger pockets it’ll be worth it for you man.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any other questions.

@Brennen McConnell

Do not pay anything upfront besides appraisal fee, and attorney fee and even that pay directly to the appraiser, and for attorney fee wait until after the appraisal. Think about it, what possible reason would they have to charge you 2 points upfront? It costs them nothing to put your paperwork in, any company that can’t wait for their points to be paid at the closing table is someone you should run far away from. I don’t need to know who the company is and I don’t care what their reviews are like. Never pay any fees upfront besides those two things I mentioned above and even then make sure. Ask for the attorneys name do your own follow up.

Also 100% of purchase and construction....sometimes dreams are to good to be real. And I promise you this is one of those times.

@Frankie Paterno

@Frankie Paterno hey I’m actually an investor/realtor in Staten Island and I definitely get the struggle of buying in Staten Island. 60k in Staten Island can’t get you too far, but it’s definitely enough to get started, hear me out.

First what are you looking to do? flip? Wholesale? Rentals?

What do you bring to the table? Are you just the guy that can bring 60k to the table? Are you an expert on the Staten Island real estate market? Are you an expert in construction?

*This strategy works with flips or wholesales best.*

If you’re the money guy you can easily turn that 60k into at least 90k. Look into getting a personal loan from companies like lending tree, look at other websites too I’ve personally used lending tree before. Lending tree gives you up to 40k with fees it’ll be 37k at a rate of around 9-13%.

Now you got 97k to play with.(find a deal and get it locked up before taking the personal money loan). Next how much of a line do you have on your credit cards? Between all my cards I have 90k. So now you have your credit cards to that can open up more money for you. Try and see if the cards will give you a check to write yourself if not that’s fine use the cards for the material, title fees, attorney fees, etc.

So that 60k you have could easily got to 100-150k depending on your credit worthiness.

Now you decide if you want to go at this thing alone and be super tight with money while the deal is happening, or find a partner! 50% of something is better than 0% of nothing. Find someone that brings something to the table since you now have money more or less covered I’d try and find an expert in Staten Island real estate, or construction

Get in touch with a hard money company. You should be able to get 10-20% down payment deals through them and they’ll include the rehab money if you need it. As a newbie they’ll chew you alive on points and rate but again doesn’t matter work those numbers into your deal. Look for 2-3 points 10-13%.

Again make sure the personal money comes after the deal is found, and after you go through approval with the hard money lender. 9/10 times they only run credit once so the personal money loan won’t show.

Now you got the money lined up, possibly a partner.

Now find a deal up to 325k. The money you’ve lined up should be enough to cover a deal in this range with a combination of hard money and personal loans. And there’s plenty of them in Staten Island that’s where 90% of all my purchases land in price point.

This all sounds dangerous like you’re getting yourself into a lot of debt right? Well you’re 100% right. I’m 6 deals in and my life for the past 2 years has been nothing but high debt for periods of 4-6 months and dramatically cutting my living expenses. But because of flipping I’ve managed to buy my personal house and by the end of next year I’ll have enough to double its footprint. It’s a dangerous and stressful game to play but the payout on it has been well worth it for me and my family.

I would suggest getting into flipping before rentals in Staten Island because a Brrrr strategy here is very difficult(not impossible) to do. A lot of the time you’ll end up leaving your money in a deal. Every 2-3 flips buy a rental.

Everything I told you above is exactly what I’m doing on my deals, I know it sounds dangerous but if you do your homework and don’t rush into things it works I promise you. Don’t look to make a killing on a deal 40k should be your minimum profit to keep yourself safe. Aim for 100k a deal that’s what this market supports anywhere between 80-100k.

Anyway that’s my 2 cents.

Get in touch if you have any questions, I’ll talk about real estate all day lol

@Dean Fiacco all depends on where the majority of the people are going to be from. Staten Island would probably be better just because it’d be so much easier for parking.

Current Location is at my Real Estate office just for the sake of putting in an address, but will move that to somewhere more neutral and with alcohol (lol) as we get closer to the date. I left plenty of time to find a place. 

Looking to get together some experienced investors and newbies or people just interested in getting into Real Estate together to network and give each other advice. I'm hoping everyone has the mindset that Real Estate is big enough for us not to worry about helping new guys get into it. This is open to anybody who want's to come you don't have to be a NYC investor, come tell us the benefits of investing out of NYC too!

For the Newbies I'll get some stuff together for you that I believe will help you find deals, finance deals etc. I'm only 2 years and 6 Deals in myself so by no means am I a veteran investor but I'll give whatever advice I can give that helped me get started. 

Will be getting some Hard Money Lenders, and Mortgage Brokers to swing by and talk financing options for Real Estate Investors. If you're one yourself feel free to contact me would love to have BP members speak. 

As far as finding deals I'll do my best to get some Reps from online auction sites to come by to explain how all of that works, I personally have experience purchasing from Courthouse Auctions, and REO Properties as well so I'll gladly give any advice I can on that.

Please don't come and be that annoying guy/girl that's just there solely to throw their card at people and prospect clients. You're welcomed to prospect and hand out cards but be courteous about it. 

If anyone else here has any ideas that we should include please feel free to message me.

Hoping this works out and we get a decent amount of people to show up!

He's looking to sit down and talk about it with me within the next 2 weeks or so. I told him I would have some information put together for him when we sit and talk. I'm not sure why I said that because I have no idea what the hell to put together lol I've done private money before but it's been with my own family that asked me 0 questions, and didn't need anything put together. I've borrowed 150k from family but they never asked me for any information or a plan or anything like that. This guy is talking about investing 400K+. I feel like I need to show a higher level of sophistication, and preparedness.  

What exactly should I include in this presentation that I promised? Any advice is appreciated. 

@Jennifer Edwards it’s really entirely different per region. I’m in Staten Island NY I can gut a house to the studs for 80 a sq ft with a contractor, 50 a sqft if I’m doing the work myself. But if I bought a house in Brooklyn, maybe 5-10 miles away my cost goes to 100a sq for to gut renovation.

Honestly it’s a bit of a screwed up way to do things because you’d be wasting peoples time, but one way you can get a gauge of how much it would take to renovate certain parts of the house would be to call a contractor to your personal house and ask them to give you a bid for a new bathroom, kitchen whatever you need to know prices on. If I were you I’d pay the contractor for his time 100-150 bucks for 30mins to an hr to come and give you bids.

I don’t think you’d even have to lie to a contractor, call a couple of them and say I’d like to know how much it’s going to cost me to fix certain areas of my house I’m willing to pay 100 for a bid. I don’t think you’ll be hard pressed to find contractors willing to do it.

@Huso Akaratovic

I mean really depends if the response you want to give him contains profanity or you want a clean response lol . On a serious note the Inspection passed, as far as you’re saying you had no knowledge of any plumbing issues. A pipe collapsing after the house sold is by no means your responsibility.

I have an opportunity to buy a 3 family house where the Owner will hold 20% as a second position as a 30 with a 2-5 year balloon at 5.5%, If I can find a bank that will do 80% as a 1st position. He even offered to allow concessions for closing costs(if legally allowed). I'm trying to buy the place with no money down, does anyone know any bank that would do this?

The property needs about 25k in work to bring to my standards, though its liveable and mortgageable as is. 

Rent Roll is 4,500 a month, Taxes on this house are 1800, water and sewer might be another 1800-2000. Separate utilities. 

I don't have 20% to put down right now out of pocket, and I don't want to let this opportunity slip me by. Any advice would be appreciated. 

"They are willing to give a stranger 30K under much less favorable terms..."

Funny thing is I did not think of it in those terms at all man. You're 100% right though. 

What I shared of the OA was just some of the big bullet points but its like 4 pages long. 
Though my attorney is one of the top real estate attorneys on Staten Island and he definitely put mandatory arbitration clauses in there, I'm going to definitely have a conversation with my lawyer about some of the things you brought up.

I appreciate your advice on the subject.