All Forum Posts by: Vijaianand Thirunageswaram

Howdy Houston BP Investors,

It's been a while. I hope you guys all staying safe and working around this pandemic and making deals happen!! 

I know it's hard with all going on but things are continuing in the slow face in many areas including Real Estate transactions. Deals are still out there and investors are finding them and closing on it. Whether you are up for the challenge or not is the question?

More than ever I see great inflow of investors from all over US especially CA focusing on Houston Market. I see many new investors in our forum. They either have some idea or no idea at all. One thing I noticed, they have preset mind set by the learning from podcast and other online forums which might be totally different from reality. They all want to invest in Real Estate and get to stage to have Passive income. Don't we all have the same goal to retire sooner and replace our regular income with passive income. But whether we can reach that goal by taking action or not is going to make biggest difference of all. Not everyone has the motivation and plan of action to achieve like they say, " A plan without an action is just a dream".  Many disappear after few months.. 

Many RE Gurus say, Houston is one among few good rental markets with low property prices and decent rental income to get good return compared to East or West coast cities.. IS IT REALLY??

Yeah, to the most part that's true but we do have Hurricanes, Flood and High property taxes which eats up our cash flow. If you can keep afloat on top of all these perils, surely you can build a healthy portfolio for future. That's the Reality. Many new investors are surprised about it. 

Anyway, If you still interested.  HOW can one start? Like Brandon say, start analyzing deals and work on your Financials.. But WHERE do you find the deals and WHICH area to choose?  Those questions go to local experts like Realtors. 

HOLD ON! Before all these, you need to first build your resume. Fill out our BP profile on what you want to do and how you want to do etc., When you reach out to someone, they will surely check your profile before accepting your request. That's what I do. I will accept anyone request randomly. Your profile information is important to get attention and get help quicker. 

Now you are ready.. Start with analyzing deals before you contact agent/realtor. Check Har.com, Zillow or Realtor.com. But Houston is BIG, very BIG. You need to figure out whether you want to concentrate C Class or B Class neighborhoods. Suburb or Downtown or Uptown areas. It might depend on your strategy. BRRRR Strategy or Turn Key.. Figure that out.

Many thing BRRRR Strategy is golden. You can find a property with 60-%-70% discount and make it happen. Not all the time especially in this market, it's low supply and high demand. OFF Market properties are very thin so you gotta be patience and aggressively looking. Still you won't find 50-60% discount which I haven't seen except in C Class. I stick with B Class for very reason, low turn over rate and low vacancy rate, close to 1 - 1.25% rental income. That's the key numbers.

Once you nail down the area, start looking for deals and analyze them and get an hang of it.. Once you are ready, now it's time to look for local agent who can help you make the ball rolling... 

My BIG suggestion would be, do your HOME WORK first before contacting anyone. Do not waste time try to form a TEAM. That team will vanish if you don't have deal in 1-2 months. It just mere waste of time. Good people don't stick around because they are busy and have lot other things to do.  Get Ready yourself first and everything will fall in place for you if you have the right person to help you out.

BE SAFE EVERYONE!!!

If you want title company specifically dealing with wholesale properties, I would recommend Fidelity National Title West Loop, Tiffny Scott - Investor Division. Let her know who referred and you will get special service. 

@Michael H. Tis topic has been discussed many times in the forum. Do search in BP and you see lots of posts.. here is one

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86/topics/312015-meetup-in-houston-tx

@Jodi Gauthier is right! There are quite good older communities south of 10 but pricing might be tricky. Westgreen is another to add to the list. But keep checking and you might hit a jackpot. 

@Benjamin Carver I see lot of college grads interested in house hacking these days in Houston. House hacking is good strategy but is Houston right play ground for it? It depends on the location you want to target. It is possible in downtown area where there quite inflow of student population and as well duplexes and 4plexs but other areas not much. In other areas, I have seen investors doing with SFH homes but finding partners or room sharing bit tougher unless you have contacts. So choose which area you really want to be and try it out accordingly.

@Jamal Fontenot I see you are targeting Katy which is surely one of good school districts around but Katy has exploded in last 10 years and it spans from south to north of 10. Bear Creek south is decent neighborhood but make sure you are not flood zone or flood plain. We have so many houses flooded in Katy near Bear creek park area. 

@James Polk I see you house hacking and room renting strategies. I would be interested to see where you able to get those duplexes... 

@Ryan Jones There are so many OOS investors checking out Houston market these days. It's crazy and there are few investor friendly realtors in the forum who closely deal with investors.. Do check out them from the post and their profiles and you will find good one.  

BTW, hope you know what you are looking out especially like BRRRR and price point etc,.

@Mark Sewell Thanks Mark.. I never seen anywhere being used.. 

@Jeremy Staggers It depends on the deal. There are many companies who don't know how to deal with wholesale deals who only care about retail real estate transactions. Patten Law firm with Texas American Title, Declaration title, Fidelity Title on certain locations are very familiar with investor transactions.. 

@Ryan Jones Welcome. I recommend you to check the member search option and who are realtors and have presence in the Houston forum and have references in their profile and figure it out that way.  That may be best way to find the right person who can help. 

I never heard the term OOS investors.. What is it? 

@Danielle Scott We had discussed in other post, many new investors worry about these things before even finding the deal or spending more time finding it. These logistics will fall in place automatically once you have a deal and contract in place. 

There are various factors involved in deciding whether you need to have LLC or not. First, you need to figure out whether you need financing.. then LLC won't work because it will commercial loan. if you need to use conventional lending, you better buy from your name to make use of the low interest rates. You can change the title to LLC later and few lender will openly allow it like Trustmark bank. They do it for you. You don't have to worry about due clause which many lenders do even care. I have done it for my investors many times and nothing happened. As long you pay on time, they don't don't care.

LLC is good if you have work in medical industry and exposure to liability in your field and want to protect your asset. Otherwise you can continue to hold in your name and take umbrella policy. I don't have LLC but have umbrella policy which covers all my properties. Hope this helps you.

As per which agreement to use, again, get the deal first and worry about these things. Don't jump to step 10 when you are not even ready to cross Step 1. There are lots of agreement available online from BP, legalzoom you can use if you cannot use TAR or TREC forms.