All Forum Posts by: Jacob Wathen

This is great! I am working on creating a map of investor friendly agents in over 150 cities across the U.S. I will definitely follow this forum and add to my list. Thanks @Chris Seveney!

@Elaine Fawcett Unfortunately that happens over here in Oregon too. People post ads on CL claiming to be renting out the property and take advantage of renters' excitement of lower deposit/monthly rent. I hosted an open house and someone came by claiming to be in a 5 day conversation with the owner of the property. She was given a lot of false information in order for the potential renter to give up a lot of her real information. It was very clear that she was the one scammed. I'm sure @April Molina and her family could tell if the squatters were actually the scammers or not though. No one would believe that a handwritten note was their actual rental agreement so I am sure they were just trying to get a little money to be evicted or just wanted a place to stay for a couple days. Glad you got them out of there though! Like other people have said, we just have to take the good with the bad when it comes to real estate investing. 

Hello @Natalie C.! I am from Northern California and I am familiar with Fairfield. Seeing that you have a pretty decent spread between remaining principal and potential value (don't trust the Zestimate) it seems that reinvesting the money into other properties is pretty attractive. Depending on where you are in your life and if house hacking is still something that you are willing to consider I would think about refinancing (if necessary) to free up some capital and purchase a multi family and live in one unit and rent out the other(s). I do not typically suggest selling off positive cash flowing investments unless you have a clear plan with what you are going to do with the proceeds of the sale and the next investment has better cashflow. 

Hello @Jose Quintana! Getting started on your first flip is an awesome process and I am glad you are working on building your network before diving in! I grew up in Sacramento and I know of quite a few investors with established networks in the area. I will give a couple of them a call to see if they have any good referrals for you! 

Hello @Valente Sosa! 

@Jacob Ghena does bring up a great point! Why not work with a Realtor? 

You want your property to be viewed by the largest buyer pool and although saving 6% in commission sounds great you would lose a large portion of motivated buyers because your property is not on their agent's radar. Also, when a homeowner sells a home on their own they are usually responsible for providing the buyers agent commission of 3%. So in reality you would only be saving 3% and there would be less motivated buyers viewing their home, which typically results in lower offers and ultimately a lower sales price. 

If you are committed to selling your home on your own, however, there are a lot of established feeds on Bigger Pockets that will give you the best practices for doing so. Professional photography is a MUST. Cleaning, decluttering, and staging will help tremendously. Most importantly you need to list at the right price. Don't list for what Zillow says your home is worth. You need to do a full comparative market analysis and find the true value of your home. You also need to account for the fact that we are in the Fall/Winter and there are less active buyers looking for a home. So doing absolutely everything you can to get in front of the most buyers is very important! 

Hopefully this information helps and I do suggest at least interviewing with a couple real estate agents. Usually they will do a free home valuation and give you an idea of what you need to do to your home to be in the best position to sell. 

@Neal Collins Thank you for pointing me in that direction! What I am looking to do is quite a bit different than Lab Coat Agents and my goal is to actually establish relationships with agents around the country. It is definitely a good way for me to locate people I may want to speak with though. 

Hello @Rob Beardsley! Although I do completely agree with you that cash flow is king I can understand a couple points from the other side. Some investors are willing to purchase in an "up and coming" area and lose maybe 100-200 bucks a month in cash flow and hold the property for a couple of years banking on the area being revitalized and for them to double if not triple their initial investment. I have seen that time and time again in the Portland market and areas with low cashflow. For instance if someone knows that there is a development planned for a couple years out that will severely increase the value of their property they are willing to take an educated gamble. 

If you catch wind that a fancy grocery store is popping up a block away from a 4-plex for sale you can make a pretty well-informed decision that there will be appreciation in the properties future. I also think that people can predict the direction are certain city is growing. If you notice that home values are consistently increasing throughout the city but hasn't quite hit one specific area yet then it might be worth buying property there and playing the waiting game. I hear stories like @Jay Hinrichs' all the time and it just makes me kick myself for not playing the appreciation game.

For my personal investments I do not break my cashflow rules but I also do not have a lot of capital to gamble with. 

Hello Josh!

I am a real estate agent in Portland and although their are still decent investments in the area I definitely understand the desire to dive into out of state investing (as I have done some myself). I like Nebraska for good buy and holds but there are many other places like Dallas and Memphis that are great for investing. I would definitely suggest keeping your out of state investments in one area. One major benefit from that will also be the ability to utilize one management company and if you ever do visit the properties it is an easier process. I know of many people that prefer to diversify their real estate investments but to begin with I would suggest sticking with one area for sure. 

Any area that has a visible investment market with high returns will likely have a banking/financing scene that is able to represent both out of state and in state investors. I would definitely suggest connecting with an investor friendly agent in the area, maybe @Dean Harris, and they will be able to point you in the right direction in regards to financing. Best of luck to you! Stay active on Bigger Pockets so we can see your journey and so you can learn from some seasoned investors. 

Great idea Karen! As you know I am over in Portland but I am always looking for an excuse to escape to Bend. I will follow this feed and pending road conditions and date of event I will certainly try to make it out. 

Like Russell Brazil said there are frequently homes listed that aren’t actually available. But I do think it’s a valuable tool and it is very user friendly. I always tell clients to just check with me before they get excited. They no longer say “can we go see this one” they actually ask “can you check to see if this one is still available?” It’s a much more realistic approach.