All Forum Posts by: Glenn Mayo

@David Faulkner That is a very good point, sir. One well worth considering.

All good thoughts, but my primary concern was in terms of financing. With SFRs, you'd use hard money, buy, rehab, and then rent. With multifamily, if you're financing, you can't wait a year or however long it takes for leases to expire. You've got to get in, get it financed and rehabbed, and be done. Unless I'm having a fundamental misunderstanding of how financing works on larger multifamily properties...?

Let's say you're going to buy an apartment building. It doesn't really matter what size, but just for this example, let's say it's a twenty unit building. The building is fully occupied, and the tenets are all paying their rent. While you're doing your due diligence, however, you discover significant deferred maintenance issues, which necessitate some rehabbing on the building and the units. How do you go about getting the rehab done when the units are all occupied? I don't believe you're allowed to simply boot everyone out the door so you can spruce the place up, but you can't do the rehab with them in there. Assuming you can't finance the rehab out of your own pocket and do it gradually as each unit's lease expires, how can you do it?

@David Thompson Unfortunately, I'm not an accredited investor - yet. That's where all of this is headed, though. I'm at the beginning of a road, but I know where the road goes, which, I THINK, puts me at least a step ahead of many people who have dreams but no actual GOALS. So, the only way I could get in on a bigger deal like that would be to syndicate it myself, and I don't feel quite confident enough in my skills yet to risk other people's money that way. If I had friends who were doing bigger deals like that, I could throw my investment dollars in with them and grow them and gain the skills and knowledge to do it myself simultaneously, but I'm basically boot-strapping everything myself, so.... This is a hard field to break into, unfortunately, but it is SO worth it once you do!

@Bob Green I am always open to making connections - that's what our business is about, right? :) I would appreciate the introduction, and also any advice you can give on other areas around the country that are up and coming. I'm less interested in the "hot" markets than I am in some of the "warm" markets that people tend to forget about, but where there is a decent rate of appreciation and decent rent rates. I'm primarily interested (for now) in solid, middle class SFRs (in my area, that means homes for $150k or less, preferably less), built 1978 or newer, needing a bit of TLC; and also in smaller mutli-families - meaning duplex, triplex, fourplex. I know apartment buildings are great investments, but they're a little out of my reach right now...unless I can syndicate a deal, and I seriously doubt anyone would partner with a newer investor such as myself on something of that size. However, I would definitely bird dog for anyone interested in such properties here in my area who asked; the hospital district is particularly interesting for more experienced investors with deeper pockets. That whole area used to be pretty run down and bad, but it's gentrifying faster than just about anything I've ever seen. If I had the wherewithal, I know of a few gems in that area I'd gobble up! Anyway, thanks so much for reaching out!

Thank you all for your input. I do know this area reasonably well, as I have lived here for almost 11 years (I am much more knowledgeable about Fort Worth and its suburbs than Dallas, however), and I have watched this area go from an almost backwater right before the crash to a virtual boomtown since. Understand, I'm not giving up on DFW, I'm just seeking some other areas where I can get more bang for my investing buck, so that I can then turn around and put that money back into investments closer to home. I see a lot of people investing outside their area, and I can imagine the nightmare scenarios that can come up when doing that, and I'm just trying to figure out how more experienced investors mitigate some of the risks and maximize their rewards. If there's anyplace on the internet to ask about this, BiggerPockets is it!

So, I have the disadvantage of living in one of, if not the, hottest real estate markets in the country, here in DFW Texas. There are a lot of pros and cons to it, but I keep running across people who don't even live in Texas, let alone in this market, who are investing here. And that got me wondering: if I was going to invest outside my area, A) what would be the best way to determine which markets were the best to invest in, and B) without being able to simply hop a flight at will and go check out properties, how would I know if what I'm buying is a good buy? As an example, I've saved a couple outside investors some HUGE headaches when I found out they were looking at properties in the Stop 6 area of Fort Worth. Because I live in this city, I know that buying in that area is like buying in South Central LA; you could do it, because property values there are SO low, but you'll regret it, especially if you're a buy and hold investor. So, let's say that, somehow, I determine that, I don't know, Oklahoma City, for example, is an up and coming market, and I decide I want in on that. But I can't actually go to OKC to look for properties or close, etc. HOW would I do it, and do it well? I know some of you on here are investing out of state, sight unseen, and doing very well. How do you do it? How do you figure out which markets to enter, where in that market to invest, and then find truly good buys in those areas and go through the process all the way through closing and property management, all without ever setting foot in the area or laying eyes on the property? Learning to do this is vital for me, since I am really being forced out of my own market by the fact that it's so hot that everyone and their brother, from all over the world, is buying here. Comprehensive help would be wonderful. Thanks!

I've just been looking on Craigslist and on various brokerage websites, like Keller Williams, Century 21, Sotheby's, etc.

I'm looking to get started in multi-family, but it just seems like there are NO duplexes - 4plexes anywhere anymore. I'm in DFW, and I'm looking throughout the Metroplex (except in Dallas), but there just seems to be nothing anywhere. Suggestions?

@Jason Arcuri I hear what you're saying, I'm just looking at the overall financial picture of the state of Connecticut, and the fact that the state is bleeding citizens and businesses at an incredible rate, and I have to ask myself how many renters are there going to be when the overall population is trending down rapidly, and the fiscal situation of remaining citizens is either not going to be good, or is going to be good enough that they can buy, not rent. It's great if real estate is cheap, but if there're few people to rent your apartments, all you're doing is buying liabilities. As a much more extreme example of the direction Connecticut is headed, real estate in Detroit is dirt cheap, but I wouldn't rush in and start grabbing up rentals, because there's no one to rent to. Connecticut as a whole is in a fiscal death spiral, and to me, that makes the cheap real estate basically worthless. However, I'm always interested in learning other people's opinions and techniques, so if you're making it work, I'd love to hear how.