All Forum Posts by: Ivor Grisel

The best tip I can give you is to start finding off market deals. We're going to pass our first deal tomorrow and we didn't find that through Funda. We only had one deal in Funda that made sense. Asking price was 175, we bid 185, it went for 225... so off market is most likely the only way you're going to find deals. And for those you will have to extend your network and/or make sure people find you and know you are an investor. 

If you want to have a chat sometime, send me your number in a personal message. Be aware, due to corona, I am a bit low on time (taking care of the kids, but also still working -need money for investing 😉). So might be some time before I'm available for that call.

Dear Furkan,

Welcome on the BiggerPockets forum! I'm also from the Netherlands, almost getting my first deal.

What kind of deals are you looking for? And be aware: the crisis isn't providing the wanted effects yet. The crisis hasn't to been a crisis long enough yet for the real estate sector (at least from what I'm seeing). Even more so, there is news from interest rates going up while house prices haven't dropped. It really depends on how long this will crisis will run.

Personally, if we can get out in the same time period as China, the hit on real estate won't be that big (showing how resilient RE is). The group that wants to buy is still big, and the amount of available housing still small. So if you're looking for deals, off market (so no Funds :)) might be your best deal.

As mentioned, I'm just in the game, so people with more experience might have other/better insights.

Again, welcome!

@Olivier Meijer

Welkom Olivier! Leuk dat je hier op jouw leeftijd al iets post.

Now on to English, so everybody can follow. In regards to your education: why do law? If you want to start investing in real estate a.s.a.p., you need a job where the amount you make is not dependent on the time you work. Law isn't one of those jobs per se. Unless you get your own firm, but that will be a few years along the road, in which you will most likely already have your portfolio build up.

Why not choose something that helps you in your social media endeavor? If that makes you more money now, build on that. See if you can have the company work for you instead of working in it.

If you love law, you should go ahead an do it. But don't do it because of real estate. You would be better off getting knowledge in the field. Something like a "makelaar" education. That way you learn about real estate, make money working in it, and get the possibilities for deals.

Good luck with finding your path man! And be sure to attend the Dutch meetups, so you can already start building your network.

@Dhiraj Prakash I'm still busy on getting my first rental, but I'll share the knowledge that I've got.

First a question though: how did you finance your first? If you have some overvalue in your own home, you could use that. If not, you should be looking at a vastgoed-/beleggings-/verhuur hypotheek. Woonfonds and NIBC are examples. These mortgages finance a rental for 70/80% of the property in rented state (which is lower than the actual purchase price and has to be determined through taxation - expect a difference of about 70/80% of the purchase price). From those 70/80%, everything above the 50% has to be paid off in a linear fashion in 10 years. The other 50 can be interest only after those 10.

The site that I found the most helpful in calculating the monthly costs was https://www.financiering-regelen.nl/verhuurhypotheek-berekenen-bij-alle-vastgoedbanken.php. They also mention a 35 year "annuïtair" mortgage, but no further info.

If you do have some overvalue on your house, you can take a "traditional" mortgage (linear/annuïtair/interest only).

As stated, I'm just beginning, so I am dependent on the info found online. Maybe some more experienced investors have other ways of financing, do hopefully they will chime in.

@Nick Rutkowski This reminded me of this comic: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/07/the-fullness-of-time1 :D

Just to finish this post off: we ended up buying the already rented appartment. All the other smaller appartments that we found, we were not allowed to rent out due to the HOA.

So we have our first rental :) on towards the next!

@Theresa Harris thanks for the pointer. I'm using the four square method in the BP Youtube video, so I'm already substracting vacancy costs as well as repairs. Almost all appartements in the Netherlands have a home owner association, which does (or should do) all the big repairs. So also substracting those costs.

@Dan Deppen Thanks for the input! Especially the last thing you mention is something that I was also thinking...

@Jay Hinrichs in the Netherlands it is different. We have a point system which determines if your rent is free to be determined or "social". The max of social is about 720. The owner can decide on the rent, but if the person renting disagrees with the rent, they can use the point system to prove that the rent should be in the "social" layer, thus forcing a lower rent. Possibly resulting in negative cashflow.

I am not that worried about it now in good times and scarcity in the market, but should we hit a recession, people will want to turn every penny and this will be the easiest win for them...

Hey everyone,

My girlfriend and me are looking for our first rental property, using the overvalue on our own home. There are two possibilities. Both not certain, but want some of your insights for the consideration on how far to pursue them.

First option is an appartment that is already rented out and has 4 tenants. Cashflow will be about 580. But most likely we will have to add 15k of our own money.

This is versus an appartment which would have two tenants (son of a neighbour and a friend of his). Cashflow would be 250. But we could do it without adding any money.

So lets say that we want to buy another property in about 2 years, the second option makes more sense, because we would have 15k plus two times the year income. The first option would still be negative. But in the long run, the first option would generate more cashflow...

There is also an emotional side to this: the first option has tenants which we did not screen. The second we already know one of the tenants which is a great guy. Also, the second property will allow us to go through the whole buying and renting part, so would learn us more.

The other part is rentor protection. If the tenants of the first property would check the law, they would find out they are overpaying. They could force is to lower the rent. If that would happen, we would be screwed. That being said, the current tenants are not from our country and might not care/know their rights.

So that's the dilemma. We'll chase both options, but curious to know if I'm overlooking something. Any input is welcome!