All Forum Posts by: Jama Mohamed

@Naveen Desai My goal is really 2-fold. One angle is as someone who is getting into real estate investing and is frustrated with the inefficiency of information. The second is as a business/tech guy who is looking for a market and a need. So yes, I would love to chat and figure out what kind of information or service would be valuable to the real estate community!

@Bryan O. Thanks for the reply! So I did some digging regarding new construction projects, and I've found that the best way to get that info is to search for permits issued by the particular city. Unfortunately, each city has its own system for providing that information, but it looks like it's publicly available from what I can see. Examples are Milfort, CT, Pasadena, CA, and Littleton, CO. I wonder if making a graphical version of this information would be helpful to people? 

Hi all,

So earlier this year I was pretty set on buying a SFH, but decided to drop it at the last moment after realizing it was a bad deal. Before that I had thought I did all of the research necessary and figured out whether I wanted it, but I guess there's always something that you don't know until it's too late (or just right before). For me it wasn't anything crazy, but just some number crunching for the area that I should have been more diligent about earlier.

So my question is, what tools do you all use to crunch numbers? In any step, be it finding the deal, vetting the deal, or running it after everything is set and done. Also, I'd love to hear about any tools or services you wish existed to help you with any of these steps. Aside from learning about real estate, I also like to make sites/apps/services and if there's a need then I'd love to get on it.

One example of something I wish I had was accurate rental information. I've seen a lot of websites with average rental information for an area, for example Zillow which appears to update it month by month. But what I really wish existed was more detailed rent information for specific lots. I know that typically people wouldn't post that sort of information, but if it were available it would make spreadsheet calculations a lot easier (and certain).

Another thing that would be really nice is a tool that can flag interesting events in past/present (such as a factory being built in an area) and give real estimated numbers for the effect on house and rental prices. Not just 'this will bring in more working people to rent' but more like '+40 2br SFH, +10 1br apt estimated within 10 miles for 12345 zip'. Now this sounds like sort of a longshot, but you've got to admit that it would be pretty useful!

Anyhow, I'd love to hear from all of you who have been doing this for much longer than I have!

Hi all,

Is there any resource on the web that can tell me how often rentals pop up in a certain area and how quickly they're snatched up? It would be a pretty useful metric to use to evaluate how 'hot' the rental market is for a particular area.

@Fay Chen

I'm honestly thinking of renting out a townhome in the area seeing if I can sublet/airbnb a room. I've never done it before, but I think it might be a good way to get some "house-hacking" experience without actually committing to the purchase. I'll let you know how that goes!

@Ben Dao

Yea, it definitely sounds weird, but I understand that's just because I haven't done it yet. Feeling weird about it is no reason for me to not explore and learn it!

@Richard Bastar

Definitely! I missed the meetup in Pasadena last week, but I'm hoping to go to the others around LA.

@Fay Chen

Wow, $800/mo in DTLA is quite a steal! Yes I feel the same way about not having good exit options- I'm already looking around for places to rent and keeping my eyes open looking for interesting deals. It feels so much more liberating when you're not limiting yourself to house-hacking!

@Abe Gonzales

Yes! It's true that it's important to make RE decisions based on the deal and not to let the availability of cash control it. I need to remind myself this time and time over, so thank you for reiterating. But I believe that most of the problem in my situation is caused by a lack of understanding and me being green.

I really do need to update my profile and get more involved with the community, so I will make that a priority. Without getting too much into details, both my income and "disposable" income are in the 6-figures which is why I began to think towards RE investing as a way to grow my wealth even further. But it seems like I really do need to spend much much much more time learning less I make any bad decisions.

@David Faulkner

Very true! Speaking about appreciation in California, just looking at all of the trend graphs of prices and rent vs homes, it seems like the market has significantly slowed down (at least in the Pasadena area). Some of the graphs almost look flat in terms of market appreciation and now that we're back at or slightly above the old market peak, the projections are scary.

The rental market is increasing quickly over here which means that it'll be more advantageous to have cashflowing properties rather than buy and hope for further appreciation. At least that's what I'll be looking for, even though those deals don't seem to exist :(

@Kocsen Chung

Since I can't PM, I figured this might be a good place to list the deal info. Please correct me if I'm wrong in doing so!

#1 (1007 Del Rey AV, Pasadena 91107)

4BD/3BA, 1 "office", detached garage. 2k house on 7k lot in Pasadena (mid-range part, good neighborhood). The house is in extremely poor condition and for sale by owner who obviously did not care about it. Comps show around $700k for 3BD/2BA version in the same neighborhood, since practically no houses have >3 bedrooms here, let alone "5". The larger houses go for $900k-$1.1M.

(Property)

- Purchase price: $695,000

- Closing Cost: $10,000

- Total Cost: $705,000

(Loan)

- Down: $76,450 (11%)

- Mortgage: $2,778 (3.5%, 30-year)

- PMI: $223

- Taxes: $655 (1.13%)

- Insurance: $123

- Total monthly loan expenses: $3,779

(Rehab)

- Rehab Cost: $80,000 (walls, floors, windows, kitchen, bathrooms, etc etc)

- Time to rehab: 4 months

- Total rehab expenses: $15,116+$80,000 = $95,116

- ROI (low): 12% (($900k/($705k+$96k)) - 1)

- ROI (high): 25% (($1M/($705k+$96k)) - 1)

Looks like a decent deal, but I personally wouldn't do it considering that I would need to have a lot of experience to rehab it properly. Am I correct in thinking this is a deal?

@Kocsen Chung Thank you for the offer! I'll reach out to you soon :)

@Aaron Mazzrillo Yup, it seems like that is the case. It looks like a lot of the properties are being sold by people who are flipping.