All Forum Posts by: Garrett Hogan

Stefanie, 

A lot of developments and improvements have been made to Chelsea, but a lot more work still needs to be done to clean up the area. I agree that the impending Silver Line could add value to the area, but personally, I still think Chelsea is a cycle away. 

I have begun looking closer at properties in Revere. They seem to be more developer friendly and I think theres a lot of potential upside with the Suffolk Downs development.

Always a great event! Looking forward to attending. 

Dennis, Congrats on making the jump. I have been actively flipping and developing properties in the Greater Boston area since 2013 and it has been a great journey. I too made the commitment to do real estate full time back in 2012 and wouldn't turn back. I've learned a ton along the way on my journey and my goal is financial freedom too. 

I’m curious as to what your background is? A 6 unit mixed use property is not something I’d recommend doing as your first deal as there are a lot of components to the deal. 

Are there existing leases in place. What’s the rent roll? How long have tenants been there. What condition is the property in. Who will be managing and doing maintenance on it? 

I would recommend adding a gym as well as a small "office center" where they can sit down and do work so they don't have to go to the library or can work on group projects. 

@Bab Adetiba in my situation I did not have to. These types of situations are always good until they’re not. 

So say you borrow $50k from your friends mom and the project goes south and you lose the money. Well now she can’t pay her bills and her house is going into foreclosure. You can bet on her suing you for not properly disclosing the investment risks and because she’s not an accredited investor the SEC will get involved. 

So if you take the LLC route just make sure you're working with people who are accredited investors or understand the business.

Cabinets to go have some pretty cheap options but you'll have to put them together yourself so there's additional costs there.

If not go for a local wholesale distributor and see if they have overstock. There's a local shop near me but its not franchised. See if thers one in your area.

For someone working on their first syndication deal I’m really enjoying the advice in this thread. 

Some advice that  resonated with me the most is that you should never stop raising money even when you think you have enough for the deal. Investors will inevitably back out or never transfer the funds. If you’re continuously raising money you will have a backup plan if this happens. 

Also, always raise more capital than you think you need, especially when you’re getting started. There’s something that you will have underestimated or overlooked. 

Look forward to hearing others advice!

Ayana, if you do a search on here for proof of funds letters, there are a number of different resources and companies available for obtaining one. Id also suggest talking to some local hard money lenders in your area. They would be able to provide you with POF as well.

I run high level preliminary numbers based on my cost per square foot to build taking into considerations any difficulties or additional work the lot requires i.e underground parking, steel podium, elevator, ledge, etc. If the numbers work, Ill begin negotiating the price of the land with the seller. Once I know the seller is serious, I will put together a line item budget to finalize the deal and also bring to the bank. I've made a great effort to standardize my construction unit costs, so I'm able to put together an accurate budget pretty quickly.