All Forum Posts by: Jeff Joachim

@Mhamed Channaj we look forward to having you in the Orlando Area. I've read great things about the market in Pittsburgh. Plus my brother in law keeps telling me how great the market is. What has your experience been like in the market over there so far? 

@Flavio Zanetti I  am a broker associate for a company here in Orlando that helps investors build profitable investment portfolios as well as find flips in the area. In the past I've personally worked with anything from hedge funds to first time investors, and our firm has done over 1,300 investor friendly transactions while maintaining an A+ rating with the BBB. Feel free to pick my brain at your convenience. 

@Ess Dee I'm here in Orlando, where we get a lot buyers from the UK. Although I've done several transactions with my UK clients, they are typically buying cash. However, have you considered looking into private financing/hard money? 

@Sarah T. I agree with the other folks on here that you have limited access. As a real estate broker here in Orlando, we use client portals as well. It is a way for clients to see active properties on the MLS, while giving agents the ability to track your activity when searching. We can typically see what properties you favorite, listings viewed, when you login, and based on your patterns get a feel for what kind of properties may be of interest to you. I've been looking into trying to set up an investor friendly site for my clients here in Orlando, that allows them to differentiate between active, sold and pending listings for this very reason.

@Colleen Pelliccia lavin I'm out here in Orlando, so I don't know much about your individual area. However a good investment is determined based on your individual investment goals and tolerance for risk. First you should determine your budget per property and then do some research to see what you can afford with your specific budget in those areas. Based on what you can afford, determine which areas offer the best rental returns, show the best equity growth trends, and provide a variety of exit strategies should you want to liquidate in the future. Keep in mind that higher returns typically equate to higher risk areas. For example in Orlando we have lower income areas  in the West side that are typically considered higher risk, but give high returns. You can pick up a property for $50k that can bring in $950  monthly in rental income, but the equity will not grow considerably over time as these are lower income neighborhoods.  Then there are areas like East Orlando that have been showing a 10% growth in equity from year to year, but homes are purchased above $100k and bring in  about $1,200 in rental income monthly. It's just a matter of your comfort level and investment strategy once you have all of the numbers in front of you. Hopefully this helps...either way keep us posted on your progress and utilize all the resources here on bigger pockets in you research! 

Congrats @Courtney Merricks. I used to live down in Pembroke Pines for a couple of years. I work for a company that does a lot  of wholesale and investor friendly deals here in Orlando. About a year and a half ago, we were heavily considering opening an office to serve Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties.  The market looks ripe out there for wholesaling based on the research I did at the time. I wound up deciding to stay local since I have built a pretty good network of investors over here, but South Florida is awesome! Keep us posted on your progress!

Welcome @Peter Comb to Bigger Pockets! You have definitely come to the right place. I work with a real estate investment firm here in Orlando, but I've always been curious at how things are going in the Tampa Area. We recently sold a package of homes in Pasco County and I've been doing a lot more business in Polk County as of recent, so it has me considering expanding our operations over to the Tampa area as well.  

@Jim Zatko

 Congrats on taking the leap and your ability to be honest with yourself in order to  extract the lesson from your first experience. Your resilience is sure to pay off! In the future when considering listing a property, I'd make sure you and your agent are taking into account the average list price to sales price ratio for the area. It is key to list your property at the appropriate price, as your credibility in the marketplace will dwindle dramatically after the first 30 days and low ball offers will start coming in if any. The majority of the people prefer the method of listing a property for more than they hope to net, and then make price reductions over time out of desperation. Whenever I am listing a flip, I prefer to keep the list price at or slightly below the amount we are looking to net. Listing at a low price generates a lot of interest, creates a multiple offer situation and causes our properties to typically sell above list price. A good portion of the time here in Orlando, I am able to get $5k to $10k above the list price and an offer within the first 30 days. Worse case scenario, I would rather have 10 offers I can reject that do not meet the desired net vs having a ridiculously high list price and no activity on the property.

Best of Luck!

@Brandon Schlichter

Funny how "aggressive nature" applies to someone who seems to be building a solid portfolio and is working on a long term investment strategy. Nonetheless, thanks for the answer and please keep us posted on your continued success!

That is an awesome model @Brandon Schlichter and congrats on your success! I have a client of mine that has followed that same model in South Dakota and has successfully built his portfolio to over 200 properties. He's been steadily building his portfolio since before the Carter administration and manages all of his properties with the small property management team he put together. His plan is to duplicate the strategy used in SD down here in FL, where I have recently sold him his first six properties in the Orlando area. Surprisingly, despite his proven track record it has been challenging to find a lender to help leverage his budding Orlando portfolio. He is currently in the application process with a small bank in town, and it seems promising that he may be able to get 70% LTV at a rate of about 4.5%. We're hoping this works since the best rates hard money lenders seem to have in town are at 9%, which will not work.

You may have answered this, but what did it take for your lender to refi $110k? Was that because those are the only properties that have been seasoned for a long enough period?

@Will Barnard 

Integrity is definitely a missing ingredient among "wholesalers" here in the Orlando area as well. This might have been mentioned earlier, but when thinking of the word "wholesale" we should be thinking of making money in terms of volume of transactions, not just looking to knock it out of the park on one individual deal at the expense of the buyer. Much like wholesalers in other sectors tend to make money on bulk purchases or on a high volume of transactions over time, the same should be considered for real estate. In an ideal situation everyone would love to make $10 to $20k for every wholesale deal, but if the value isn't there for the end buyer there is no need to inflate numbers.

At the firm I work with in Orlando, we have been able to maintain an A rating with the Better Business Bureau while doing 1,000+ transactions, and a good portion of the deals have been wholesale deals. While no system is perfect, we've been able to separate ourselves from competitors by putting sold comps, rent comps complete with maps and sold dates in our marketing flyers for our properties. Folks can get a good feel for the integrity of our deals by having all the information at a glance, vs pie in the sky values arm twisting and high pressure sales tactics. The common trend with other wholesalers is to just put a "Zestimate" or a random list of addresses that have "sold nearby", without any sold dates, map to verify the comps are in the neighborhood or are similar to the subject property. We trade doing 1 or 2 deals a month with huge profit margins for doing 20 to 30 monthly and leaving a enough money on the table for investors, while not compromising our integrity.