All Forum Posts by: Gerardo Dominguez

@Carol Mthimkhulu Welcome to BP and Good luck on your investing!

@Jonathan Wyse  The benefit comes in the fact that your lender isn't bound by the same rules tied to conventional loans.  Keep in mind that the reason lenders are so stringent on their conventional loan requirements is because they're meeting certain criteria needed to, potentially, sell your loan on the secondary market.  In other words, if loan doesn't look a certain way then your lender can't resell it.  In the case of a portfolio loan, the lender doesn't care about that.  They'll structure your loan in a way that makes sense to them because they're planning on actually keeping/ servicing your loan.  So yeah, like @Jeremy Pace said; it depends :)

@Byran Parson  Sounds like a good plan.  I hope everything works out for you.  I agree with @Account Closed  I just want to add that conventional loans usually dry up after 4 properties.  After that you'll have to get creative.  However, once you're at the point that you have to many investment properties to qualify for a conventional loan, that's not exactly a bad problem to have :)  Good luck!

@Dan Leyden  I don't think I'd never do this for a rental.  However, I was just thinking about this the other day.  I'd probably do this if I ever did a flip.

@David Saleeba  Welcome to BP!  That's awesome that you're already looking into investing at such a young age.  One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't get started sooner.  Focus on learning, saving your money and building up your credit.  This will help you immensely when the time comes for your first deal.  There's a wealth of free information on this site, make sure you take advantage of it.  Good luck!

@Thi Dalley  Based on your analysis this looks like a good deal.  Just make sure you rent to the right tenant otherwise it all goes to heck!  Regarding your questions...

1) Take a look at rentals in your area.  You want to at least be competitive.  I'm assuming since you personally wouldn't pay market rent without a W/D hookup that's indicative of the local market preference.  If you want to command top dollar for your rental you need to have a top notch product, right?

2) This is a market specific question as well.  I think your best bet would be to reach out to property managers and ask them.  Tell them you're interviewing prop. mgrs and drop this question on them.  Once you ask a few you should have an accurate vacancy rate range for your area.

3) There's always a risk.  The fact that you've actually done the analysis and are now contemplating doing a deal because the numbers make sense as opposed to "a gut feeling" is a huge advantage in your favor.  Good luck!

Congrats on your success @Michael Swan!

@Kord Angelucci Welcome to BP! Make sure to take advantage of the "Find Members" tool on this site. Also, try using meetup.com to look for local REIA's in your area. It's worked for me in the past, hopefully they're in your market as well. Good luck in your investing!

@Kortez Walker  That's the million dollar question isn't it? lol  The Industry average appears to be ~1-3% response rate then ~30 callbacks to actually close a deal.  You would just need to work backwards from what you consider a "good" return to determine how many mailers you should send out.  Of course, the only difference between theory and practice and theory, is practice.  Good luck!

@Sean Cutt  Congratulations!  Glad to hear you find the work fulfilling.  Good luck to you!