All Forum Posts by: Greg Jasper

I live in a college town that has a huge student population so if you get into the rental market here, you have to deal with students. Honestly, I prefer to deal with my students than my non-students. It is a little more hands-on like Nc Mark said, and I would agree with most of what he said.

As far as an exit strategy goes, properties seem to change hands frequently in a college town, because a lot of parents are doing the same thing as you are. They will sell when their last child leaves. This is perfectly fine, but if you do have problems selling, than you can always rent it out and have a property management company take it over. This can be a great option if there is another dip in the market when it comes time to sell it. If it is a good property though, you shouldn't have any problems selling it or renting it out.

One more thing to consider about insurance, you can usually add a liablity policy to the fire policy for very reasonable cost. This will give you a little more protection against lawsuits.

Hope this helps.

I put a coat of primer, usually Killz2, and then I shoot 1 or 2 coats, depending on the condition of the original wood, of an interior latex with a satin finish. I wouldn't recommend doing this on a high-end property, but it dresses up cabinets in most rentals just fine.

Are these properties bank-owned or builder-owned? Either way, you should be able to find out how much they would let them go for and negotiate a price. I am fairly certain that the builders would let them go for fairly cheap, but there definitely could be some liens on the property. I can almost guarentee that some of the sub-contractors have not been paid. Good luck.

We are working on buying multiple properties and bulldozing them and changing the use of the properties.

For example, a business partner and I have started to buy 4 houses that sit on 6 lots (about 1.5 acres). We will spend the next year or so acquiring the properties, can then we will go through all the neccessary steps to change the zoning and build a mixed-use building on it with retail and office space. It sits 4 blocks south of the Texas A&M campus on a major thoroughfare. I figure that it will take at least 3 years to complete this project.

Most of the value of the older homes is in the land. To renovate these houses wouldn't be cost effective. In our area, it is cheaper to bulldoze and build something new than to try to bring these homes up to code.

Hey Cody,

Since you're fairly young and inexperienced, I would suggest finding a real estate agent that you could work for part-time, and work on taking classes for your license while you're doing it. You will learn the basics of contracts, negotiations, financing, etc. and maybe make a little extra money also. I know that during the summer months, some of the agents in my office use part-timers to help out with things.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

Christian, we did get some minor damage from Ike up here- some roof damage, fallen limbs, blown over fences, but nothing too bad. Mainly, we just had all our ice, gas, and food bought up from all the people coming up from Houston!

As far as my real estate investing, I'll try to keep my story as short as possible. My grandfather (who was also into REI) passed away about 8 years ago and left me with a small (very small!) inheritance, and I used it to buy my first duplex. I bought it as a homestead so I only had to put down 5%. I did the same the next year, and with around $20k I had 2 brand new duplexes. I then bought a new builder home when they were giving them away, lived there a few years and turned that into a rent house. I would have kept doing that but my wife said no more moves!

During this time, I decided to get my real estate license so that I could make a commission everytime I bought something. Eventually people wanted me to manage their properties for them so I have a management company also. I also have a contracting company that my brother helps me with and we buy and sell properties and do work for other investors as well.

I'm now moving more into redevelopment projects as everything around the campus here is old and poorly built. It's a huge challenge and the projects will take awhile, but it's a fun game to play!

I'm just looking forward to interacting with other investors on a larger scale here.

Howdy from College Station, TX. I stumbled across this site today and I've already spent a couple hours reading some of the threads on here.

I bought my first property in 2000, and I haven't looked back since. I got my real estate license about 5 years ago and I'll should finish up my broker's license in a few months.

I look forward to learning more about real estate investing, and seems that there is a great number of people to learn from.