All Forum Posts by: Ben Nelson

Our monthly Yamhill Valley Investor Lab meet-up will be held once again at the Bellingar Estates in Newberg, on Thursday, March 31st. The in-person meet-up will begin at 6:00 PM with the Livestream starting at 6:30 PM! 

Group leaders, Anita Borgaes and Ben Nelson will be facilitating deal analysis so be sure to bring your deals in person or virtually! Food and drinks provided!

See you there!

PS: Can't attend in-person, we'd love to have you virtually. You can interact with the Livestream here: https://www.facebook.com/pdxin...

@John Douglass first congrats on getting in the game so young. You've got lots of time to figure things out, so don't feel rushed. :) I'd say you shouldn't look at being an agent or investor as things that have to be mutually exclusive. Many do both. Being licensed just to invest doesn't make sense, you should only be licensed if you plan on building a business as an agent as well (IMO). Use your real estate license and get some revenue coming in, and use your commissions to buy some investment properties along the way. You'll likely get the inside track on some deals from your normal broker activity as well. Being in the game on a daily basis helps you learn the market so that helps too. A big mistake I see is picking just the first one...sales...and never investing. Don't be an agent instead of being an investor, be an agent who invests!

Come join our Investor Group, on February 22nd where we will be talking deal analysis! Food and drinks are provided! You can also join the Livestream that day by following Investor Lab on Facebook! 

I completely agree with @Kerry Baird, I'd much rather have fixed debt than something that's variable and/or can be shut down. Many HELOCs were closed out during the last recession - oops, there goes all that liquidity you thought you had, just when it's the perfect time to have it to invest. Cash in hand from a fixed loan is ready to go no mater if the market starts taking away equity or not. Yes, you pay interest whether it's in use or not, but the downsides of a HELOC outweigh that factor, in my opinion. Just get it to work quickly and keep it working for you. :)

Do you know what LTV those lenders will go up to on their products? I'm guessing it's still 70-75% on non-owner occ.

@Brandon Fischer - I would venture to guess it's a combination of owners ignoring regulation and certain zonings that allow it. Many cities are like that. Certain zonings you can do it by right and it's allowed, and others require special use permits or it's not allowed. Start digging into that aspect of it and you'll start finding answers.

We're looking at this in St. Pete as well, though haven't dug into it deeply yet on the local level.

Hey Nick, welcome.

We're looking at opportunities in Florida as well.

@Chris Duffy is in Tampa as well and has a few investment properties and some good connections in the area, he'd be a good person to connect with.

Good question David, and good idea. I'd connect with a good lender who will know the nuances of those loan programs. There may be some level of occupancy requires (ie certain number of days per year), but I'm not sure.

Completely agree with especially #3 by @William Sing - Definitely an option worth looking at, combing buying a personal and investment property in one. It doesn't get you an investment in an outside market, but it does kill two birds with one stone and at least gets you an investment property. It should lower your monthly housing expense as well, which will likely put you in a better position for purchasing another investment property sooner.