All Forum Posts by: Ivan Vargas

Hi @Fanny-olga Calderon welcome to BP. As @Jorge Zea mentioned pbc.gov/papa (PAPA) is awesome. Yes the section where it says Property Detail shows you the address to the property. You will also see the owners name and mailing address, sales history, information about the property like zoning and square footage, and the best part is if you click on "view map" you can see all the neighboring properties and information about those as well.

PAPA is definitely a great tool for Palm Beach investors.

I'm forwarding your number to my NY team they may want to take a look.

@Brent Coombs I am not saying the banks should "give away money". In response to the OP, there are great deals to be found in REO's, however they turn into not so great deals when the competition comes in and drives the price up.

Some banks, as the OP mentioned, set their prices at market - estimated repair cost which depending on actual repair cost might end up being equal to or higher than ARV.

For example another REO I went after: asking price was $265k, and I figured around $25k in repairs. ARV was around $309-319k. I offered $240k and of course got rejected.

At $265k that would be great for an owner occupant who planned to live in the house and just wanted to customize it to their liking.

REO's should be the better deals. Some are priced well below market here in Palm Beach however there is so much competition that the offers go way above asking. Last one I went after was asking $109,900 I offered $126,500 and got beat out by another who offered $135k. ARV would have been somewhere in the $220-250k range and from my walk through I figured 40-50k in repairs (needed a new roof).

May 16th Regulation Crowdfunding goes into effect. However, the existing platforms may not be interested in pursuing this so we have to wait and see... Many new platforms will launch appear but of course we won't know anything about them.

Depending the price, I would buy a 3/2 with 1595Sq ft. then have that space permitted so you can have a 5/3 w 3214Sq ft. That is of course if it doesn't have open violations for that space and it was built to code. 

So basically you buy based on the comps for $305k, then sell at the $490k level. You may however have a longer hold time while waiting for the permit so, if you go hard money, factor those interest payments into your cost.

@David Bateman Where in Royal Palm?

Is RealStarter running on the same software? I'd like to take a look at it and test it out. If not, will you be setting up a demo site where it can be tested? 

Hi Zulma,

Welcome to Palm Beach County offering madness! Are you a licensed Realtor? From your post it does not seem like you are. Realtors have MLS access and when you go into the MLS you will see the requirements for the specific property... Here in Florida the norm is a standard as-is contract, completely filled out and signed by you the buyer. Some banks have an additional addendum that needs to be sent in along with your offer (for older houses with possible lead or asbestos; HOA).

Some of them have a portal for offer submitting offers so emailing the listing agent just won't do. IF your offer gets accepted, the seller signs and sends it back fully executed and thats it you are in contract. I'm not a licensed Realtor so I use an agent to do this for me... Aside from not having MLS access, they tend to understand each other better.

As for offering the right amount and getting the offer accepted, thats a whole other animal here in Palm Beach. If you're looking at REOs forget offering below asking price. There's too much competition and demand is way higher than supply. Expect to pay a good 10-15% over asking. I know it sounds crazy but this is what I have encountered. I just wrote about this in a recent post: I offered $95k on a house that was listed for $99k and got rejected, few days later it closed for $108k. I see this happening more and more around here and the agents are getting spoiled by it so I can understand them ignoring your lowball offers as they have mine.

I have a 9 acre property in contract for $2.1M, comes rezoned with approved plans to build 33 single family zero lot line homes. That is $63,636/lot but its raw land so it will cost another $606k to develop the land and get it ready to build which brings it up to $82k/lot. Each house will run another $200k to build for a total of approximately $285k/house. 

Total upfront investment I'm looking at around $3.2M to build 2 model homes.

In the current market conditions I can list them for $399k and maybe accept offers as low as $350k. With my projections I believe they will net $50k each x 33 = $1,650,000. 

Is it worth it to get into such a huge project and investing all those funds for at least a year to make that amount? I want opinions from other investors, would you do it? why or why not? Would you get involved in the deal if presented the opportunity? Would you partner up and say invest $82k towards one of 33 lots and build a $200k house?

I believe its worth it of course and that is why I made an offer and signed a contract. But I heard from a few already maybe its not the best deal, and I'm thinking they only see it that way because its actually a ($285,000x33) $9,405,000 project. Also the fact that I have done this before and made $100k+ on each deal and on these I'm only expecting $50k each.

Whereas I'm looking at it like a typical flip, pay $285k and sell for $350k make $50k in 1 deal. Yes it may take a year to complete, but in a year it might sell for $385k. How much is average profit/duration on a fix n flip.