All Forum Posts by: Ben M.

Is there a quick/easy way to get rental comps, history, and vacancy rates?

Is a property manager the best resource for this type of info? I guess they would be preferable compared to a real estate agent?

Thank you Rhinesca. What about the yearly costs to maintain the LLC? Does that usually stay the same?

Is an LLC costly to maintain?

Will I have a lot of problems getting refinanced to a conventional loan?

I am a newbie and looking into getting my first rental property investment. I was not planning to sign up for an LLC but I was surprised my hard money lender requires this. Are all hard money lenders like this? What are the advantage/disadvantage? I am not sure how this will impact me...

Are there any buy and hold investors in Houston who own homes in the 120-140k range and are having success with getting the property managed and rented out? Are homes in this price range considered to be more of a crime prone area? When I check crimereports.com they usually seem to have shaded crime activity... Not sure if staying in this price range may result in issues such as dealing with uncooperative tenants.

Thank You Matt. This is great info.

Thank you John. Makes sense!

Anyone know of good general contractors in Houston?

Thank you.

I am working with a major wholesaler who does not allow inspection contingencies with their contracts. It seems my option is to bring either an inspector or general contractor to verify rehab costs. A couple of questions came to mind:

1) Paying for both a home inspector and general contractor might be too expensive. Which one would be best for this job? Would a general contractor be able to evaluate all things that an inspector can including termite/pest damage etc?

2) How does one approach this situation since it seems I may have to pay them to check out this property before I even have it under contract.. What if someone else locks down on the property while I have it checked out..?

Do I understand correctly that one may be able to get their out of pocket cash back after refinancing a hard money to a conventional loan?

Let's say I bought a property for $100,000 and the property needed $25,000 rehab for a total of $125,000. The hard money loan would only lend me $100,000 and I spent $25,000 out of pocket.

The house has an ARV of $160,000. I refinance to a conventional loan and the bank will give 80% of that amount which is $128,000. Would I really be able to put all $128,000 into the new conventional loan even though my hard money loan was only $100,000? If so, would the bank just give me a check of the surplus, in this case $28,000?