All Forum Posts by: Jackson Wu

@Matt R. I live in L.A. and I agree,  it is very difficult to find a positive cash flowing property.  I've been investing since 2009 and I tell my friends, if its your first property its not the right time to buy in the Los Angeles market. Right now things are trading at negative leverage( 3.5% caps). If you are a brand new investor, you might not be correctly positioned to purchase a property that bleeds you a little every month while you are waiting for rents to go up.  Its a play for a more advanced real estate investor or a really high earning individual that also picks up depreciation benefits. 

Although my first 4 investments have been in So-Cal. For the next year, I am focusing on out of state properties. Unless you are in the business of stabilizing under performing assets I don't see the short term even mid-term benefits of a new investor shopping in So-Cal.

Edit: The other thing about buying in So-Cal right now is you are competing against of a lot of experienced players with deep pockets. Every offer I have put in in the last few months in California has an all cash offer. Even then, I have been beaten by other offers above asking with no contingencies.  So I would really be careful as a newbie real estate investor in California. You're really swimming with sharks.

Hi @Brenton Way I am interviewing. Slate, Lehman, and Harriburg property management. I guess its a pretty uniform charge across the board then. 

I'm going to be in Harrisburg on Friday and Saturday for the property inspection. If you have anytime to meetup I'd love to buy you a beer and chat about the central PA market.

I am an out of state investor and was shopping for a property manager in central PA. All the companies I have called charge between 6-10% per month which is pretty normal. However, they also charge 50%-100% of the first month's rent. Are they adding a surcharge because I am out of state? Is that normal for the area?

Roth IRA would be one of the best long term options. If you want to do something in the real estate realm, I would consider Peerstreet. They do crowd funded hard money lending and the minimum investment is only 1,000. This platform gives you the opportunity to look at a lot of real estate deals and analyse them. So you can learn what a good deal looks like for 1,000 investment.

Hi Will I'm going to the auction tomorrow in Norwalk. Message me if you have any interest. 

@Nabil Suleiman Same. This will be my first time going to an auction. I've scouted out a few properties just to watch the process.  What company do you use to do title searches for these auctions?

@Nabil Suleiman Great! Hope to see you there.  Are you active at these auctions? I'm seeing a lot of posts mentioning its hard to get deals at auction these days. Is that the case in LA?

Hi BP,

          I wanted to see if anyone is going to the live auction this Thursday in Norwalk. I've never been to an auction or purchased anything through auction so I wanted to go check it out. If any other BPers are heading out there, I'd love to meet up.

@Daniel Taylor tough luck on the numbers. We've all been there.  Just keep grinding and you'll get there. And I think i've seen three other posts by Chee chee today. That guy is cancer. Don't pay attention to him. 

@upen patel Thanks for the info. Our goal is to get that 3.5% downpayment. If mutli-unit is not an option, we will look for a SFR to work on together.