All Forum Posts by: Jacob I Strauss

Friends,

A penny for your thoughts on advertising being that I'm very much small time I am looking for your opinion and maybe what worked best for you. 

So I am on the hunt for my first deal and after about a month with the MLS I got nada so far, a couple close ones but at the end of the day nothing.

So I am looking into off market and I have designed my postcard printed em off at Staples and I am about to get ready to drop them off at perspective homes.

I am wondering if it is better to make a website to help legitimize my business or is that something that can be done down the line?

Also do you think wholesalers are a good option, or know of any lists I can get on to get looked at for incoming deals?

Thank You,

-Jacob

Good afternoon my wonderful people,

I am currently looking for the afore mentioned in the San Diego area. Let me know who you have worked with thats amazing, or if you are one of these and know your amazing let me know so we can connect. 

In terms of CPAs I would prefer they be knowledgeable in the realestate business and be able to provide insight on my best options.

For contractors I would like a few especially if I am planning on having several sites going at the same time. What I would like to see here is the last 3 bids you performed for a property or in general your overall pricing model.

For website designers I am not looking for something earthshattering and may elect to do this on my own but essentially a landing page for my flipping business. I would like it to have the functionality to take in submitted photos and send them to a Google cloud as well.

Thank You for your valueable time and I look forward to working with some amazing people.  

-Jacob

Omni,

Thank you for sharing truly motivating and it hit some real cords with meas to why I do what I do. For me its not work its fun, its challenging, and I think we all have it in us to do it if we want it bad enough. I would love to get to know you more and hopefully one day if we meet up have some stories of my own to share.

thank you for sharing :)

I don't know too much about Denver but I do know some things about remote investing. First I would say you need to build your team this being your Realtor, Broker, contractors and Management company. I am assuming you are looking to do a BRRR on this property so learning the costs of rehabs in Denver should be a priority as well as any local nuances like Excise tax, permitting, and so on. When picking your area I would challenge you to look deeper than just schools and how it has currently appreciated. What's the population? Is it growing? How many fortune 1000 companies operate in those areas and how big are they? What is the median household income, as well as average sale prices of homes in those areas. Is the cost of living high or low there and what do property taxes look like. If this will all be done remotely you will need a solid team I saw a bigger pockets podcast on remote investing and the management company they used was mynd management I believe. Anyways they seemed to really have the investors interests at heart so I would recommend them if they operate in your area. Besides all that go into this with the end in mind and to some extend you have started this knowing this will be a rental. Now doing the market analysis figure out what your expectations for the property will be are you looking to cash flow and if so how much. Are you throwing a dart at a highly appreciating market hoping to take advantage of it? All great things to consider and I wish you the best on your journey.

-Jacob

Everyone thank you for throwing the anchor out there to weigh down my expectations of this potential property. Perhaps when I do see it I will find some underlying issues that I couldnt see.  

Hmmmm so would you say if I am really going to find a deal it will likley have to come from off market? I know MLS won't offer a slam dunk and looking back I did get a bit ahead of myself.

from your experience when you find that good deal generally what does it look like for you any examples I could use to baseline my decision making process?

Hello my wonderful people,

I am starting out by flipping homes to generate funds for cash flowing properties in other states thats the goal lol but first things first. 

I am about to make an offer on a home once I view it tomorrow now the property is listed for APX 449K and its a fixer in a good neighborhood where the comps if I add onto the structure to match would be worth APX 600-650K. I am planning on making 2 offers one for 420 for all cash through a hard money lender or 435 financed and will clean up anything left behind. I would prefer the financed but honestly I don't think I could go wrong on this one. Any tips on closing this deal with those experienced in the SD flipping business?

I am figuring

20K for the remodel inside might need to open the floor plan if possible.

quoted 180 per foot for an ADU so 75-100K for the additional structure.

though my numbers still might not land me in the green on a second look with closing and such. Might be a little tighter than expected closer to 20-50K profit depending on the ADU.

Thank you all in advance from the very start I feel like home here and really I just can't thank bigger pockets enough gonna go pro soon!!!😀

Thank you everyone for the advise yea I was thinking of even doing some work for a mentor like 1 hour of me helping equals 5 minutes of your time kinda thing. I wouldn't want to waste their time as I'm sure its exhausting holding someone's hand through things like this but it would speed things up and cut the learning curve for me. I have some homework I am doing like analyzing deals, sorting through comps, and doing market analysis on multiple markets. I know a good bit of what to look for and can use the Calc and some sense to determine if I am able to get a good deal on a property. Though what I think a mentor could bring to me is the best avenues to scale and get to where I want to with less mistakes than I would otherwise learn the hard way. Improve my processes and make me faster and more efficient, I think what I am really looking to do is flip here in San Diego but take the proceeds to another market that I can find cash flowing properties. 

Thank you all for you inputs yea it's kinda what I was leaning towards and just cut my losses and invest in something better. There is an opportunity to raise the rent to 2300 but alas I think it's just too late in the game and too many unknowns to make me comfortable with that property long term. Correct me if I'm wrong but on a property that is worth say 200,000 I should be getting between 1.5-2% which would be somewhere between 3000-4000 in gross profit? I have been going through the videos a lot and I will again probably another 10 times worth of practice lol I managed to mess up the BRRR calc 3 times before I got it right haha but were learnin here were learnin lol.

Jim,

Haha D4D is rather time consuming I would say I spent about 6 hours the other day and got what I call "LEADS" haha but I would say out of the 200 or so leads there's 8 potential gems you know.... the ones with boards on the windows and tarp on the roof kind of ones. I had looked into prop stream and it looks pretty good maybe once i do a deal or two it will be a bit easier for me to afford those I will be adding that to my to do list thank you.

I suppose at first dropping them off can be a starter thing to get my first deal and if its good enough I can invest in things like prop stream to reach a wider audience. As for the loan side of things yea I agree though if I can get it done with an FHA 203K I would say that would be optimal though perhaps not practical. One thing my agent was telling me is we could waive appraisals with exception of the HUD inspector to determine the scope of work. Still though it would take 3 weeks at soonest to close Vice cash that can be done in like 3 days. Either way though I could do both if the situation warranted it and the seller was ok with closing a little later. what would you say an acceptable rate from a hard money lender looks like these days? I am guessing 8-10% with a point.

Hello everyone and thank you in advance for any advice you can give on my current situation. Long story short I have a rental property in IL when I run the numbers for it I am getting a 73% COC return buuuuuuuut theres some issues. Total cash flow is 183 currently renting for 2050 which is high for my area but not too high for the property in general it is in a very nice neighborhood but here are the issues.

1. it's on a flood plane and it did have minor flooding while I lived there it didn't get in the house but did damage dry wall in the garage and had to replace insulation in the crawl space. "I have insurance for this" "as a whole when it rains the property retains water leaving the backyard squishy for a few days and the village wont allow for any regrading of the property to fix the issue"

2. Since renting I have had to replace the HVAC system, and a year before then the water heater, it has a new hardwood floor, and carpet but needs some minor work to the back deck and garage door step. I lost a tenant due to medical issues causing them to have to break their lease at no fault and it will cost me 2k more with current management to get a new tenant.

So my question: Should I bite the bullet and get a new tenant or maybe find a new property manager that doesn't have such a high fee and use a HELOC or cash out refinance to fund further real estate purchases? Or should I sell the property and cut my losses and lessen the risk of my property suffering long term issues. As per Redfin it says I am not at a flood risk of more than 3" for 5 years because of my crawlspace but it makes me un easy. When it flooded before it was more like 18IN lol staring at water just below the level of my house was concerning to put it lightly current equity is 100k.

Thank You all soooooooooooo much for your advice