All Forum Posts by: Isrrael Mendoza

Anyone else having trouble viewing the reports/proposals? Every time I click the hyperlinks it seems to take me to the incorrect website.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $310,000
Cash invested: $33,000

First real estate investment. Quite frankly the decision to purchase the property was implemented with the intentions of making it my primary residence. However, it was then converted over to a rental property. I have invested about 3k invested to the property and the other 30k was from the down payment. Not so much advise but rather personal experience I would like to share.

Rough start but it did come with some value 1) Obtained preview of what is to come with buy and holds / LTRs 2) Gathered land lording experience 3) Knowledge on evaluating potential deals.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Rich Dad Poor Dad & along with the drive of having my first home.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Found it via a realtor my friend recommended & I negotiated it with my realtors input (mainly going off of comps).

How did you finance this deal?

Own Money

How did you add value to the deal?

N/A not much has been done to it other than a new water heater.

What was the outcome?

Learned valuable lessons to take into consideration escape plans. Even if your intentions are to buy for personal reasons one should look at homes that provide AT LEAST one escape plan. In this case an evaluation was not done and it happen to rent for an amount that allowed breaking even.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

know your market and evaluate all properties, do not get emotionally attached regards of its purpose... unless you're rich.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

yes... I actually became an agent for the realty.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $310,000
Cash invested: $33,000

First real estate investment. Quite frankly the decision to purchase the property was implemented with the intentions of making it my primary residence. However, it was then converted over to a rental property. I have invested about 3k invested to the property and the other 30k was from the down payment.

From an investment point of view it was not a good invest but my initial intentions were to make it my primary residence. Although it is barley breaking even it was a good experience : 1) Obtained preview of what is to come with buy and holds / LTRs 2) Gathered land lording experience 3) Knowledge on evaluating potential deals.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Rich Dad Poor Dad & along with the drive of having my first home.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Found it via a realtor my friend recommended & I negotiated it with my realtors inputs (main going off of comps).

How did you finance this deal?

Own Money

How did you add value to the deal?

N/A not much has been done to it other than a new water heater.

What was the outcome?

Learned valuable lessons to take into consideration escape plans. Even if your intentions are to buy for personal reasons one should look at homes that provide AT LEAST one escape plan. In this case an evaluation was not done and it happen to rent for an amount that allowed breaking even.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

know your market and evaluate all property, do get emotionally regards of its purpose... unless you're rich.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

yes... I actually became an agent with the realty.

Hello All, apologies for the WAY WAY overdue response. My buddy actually held of for now and along with that my full time job was demanding 150% percent of my time. 

However, even with that being said, he still has hopes of building his home. So, I am still pondering on this action item.

lastly, thank you to those who have responded thus far. Your time, attention, and inputs are much appreciated.

@Holly Barrett any updates on your custom home build? I am eager to hear about your experience! 

Unfortunately it seems like he will not be using a GC. He has worked in construction for quite some time now and claims he knows the required parties.

As far as I know he will not be getting financing from the bank, so that elevates the GC issues but leaves us with the whole process!

@Michael Luczka thank you solidifying the survey vs plat dilemma, I will keep that in mind as he proceeds with his project. The property is located in Douglas County, Commission District 4.

The zoning checked out, he is good to build his home. The step we left on was obtaining the Level 3 Soil Survey. I printed out the "Individuals Approved by Georgia DPH to Conduct Soil Investigations Throughout Georgia for on-site Sewage management systems" document. Which contains all the companies and names one may need. However, I called several of them and at least from my experience it seems they were reluctant to do the soil test. I will reach out to other companies the second time around but my first experience was not all that good.... actually had one individual tell me, "do not call me again"... interesting to say the least.

Perhaps, they were looking for the information to be presented in a particular manner I am not aware of or perhaps it comes down to simple cost opportunity... they would much rather deal with commercial deals or builders rather than one single home owner.

First and foremost, thank you to all who have replied thus far. Your attention, time, and inputs are much appreciated.

Secondly, @Matthew Paul seems like the cost opportunity is not there. 5 years to achieve rezoning along with a process full of "maybes". Leasing will resolve the majority of the issues if not all the issues. 

@Eliott Elias agreed, the few properties I was able to find were much more expensive than what he is in the market for. And as far as bringing on a commercial agent, I'm now thinking I should simply refer him and watch from the sidelines, while questioning the process. However, not sure how willing agents might be to do such thing.

@Cason Acor agreed, however I figured I might as well exhaust my MLS resources. But yes, I did explore other sites such as CREXI, Loopnet, Land.com, LandWatchers.com, etc.... and even then I wasn't able to find much.

However, at the end of the day, I think it might be best to do as you mentioned. Hand this off to some more experienced. I do wish to partake in commercial. So I'll have to come up with a way to get more exposure.  

Hello All, 

I am currently in talks with a potential client. His end goal is to "obtain" a warehouse for his business. He will not be manufacturing any products he will only be warehousing the items he receives till he sells and/or uses them..... notice how I quoted, obtain.

His initial thoughts were to buy undeveloped land and build the warehouse. So the past couple days I have been surfing the web and MLSs trying to find land that would best fit him. However, it has proven to be a difficult task. 99% of the available lands I've come across are zoned residential. The remaining 1% do not line up with his needs.. IF they happen to be zoned industrial.

So, i've come to the following conclusions: a) He will have to lease a warehouse OR b) he will have to rezone.

My current train of thought is to call the counties and directly ask them, what it would take to rezone a parcel. Perhaps even ways to pick out parcels which would have a better chance at getting rezoned..... if such advise even exists.

But anyhow, I wanted to share this with the BP community as well. If anyone has ever gone through the re-zoning process, I would love to hear about your experience and if possible provide me with feedback OR perhaps anyone who could provide any sort of input with regards to commercial leasing, this would be my first rodeo with commercial. I have only done residential till now.

Thank you for you time and considerations. Your support is greatly appreciated. 

Isrrael Mendoza

Hello All, 

A friend of mine recently purchased some land. Since purchasing the land he’s been contemplating the idea of constructing a home. 

He’s asked me for help on his hoke construction journey since I’m a recently licensed Realtor. However I’m afraid I’ll be learning on the fly. I am not familiar with this process.

So, this is what I know so far. 

1) zoning -> checked out, he will be able to build his home on his land.

2) building permit -> in order to get a building permit he’ll need a survey done.

3) survey - before we get the survey we will first find out the integrity of the soil by preforming a Soil Test.

4) Soil Test -> after completing the soil test a Perc Test would be needed for the septic tank. 

5) Perc Test -> required for septic tank 

note, the piece of land does not have  a sewer line so a septic tank is needed…. And if a septic tank is needed a soil test is needed. 

So what I am asking for is advice and/or a heads up on any steps I may encounter for this new construction. Any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated. 

-Isrrael Mendoza