All Forum Posts by: James Dickens

@Brian Claar Sounds like a nice little deal you have there. Are you self managing or do you have a PM and if you have a PM do you have other units/properties with them as well?

I know sometimes I'm a bit slow but I just noticed yesterday that the 2 Udemy courses I bought were both put out by adventuresincre.com 

@Jonathan Orr thanks for that great link to adventuresincre.com, looks like some great information contained on that site.  

I would be somewhat like @Robert D. when he says Tech Adjacent, that would be me. I currently oversee a communication center which uses an ERSI based mapping platform and that is tied into a UI that allows my operators to track physical assets anywhere in the world via Iridium Sat Tracking and we are currently working to add ADS-B tracking coverage to the platform as a redundancy. So although not a programmer I work closely with them to make sure the application does what it needs to do as well as working to expand the application to help with make the operators use easier and more complete. 

While doing this I have become a power user in a few different applications to not only admin them but also to understand what makes them tick. I work a lot with ESRI applications to build Webapps and Dashboards. I have been looking for ways to leverage this platform to be better informed about real estate by mapping things like population and job growth and am using that to look at areas to invest in. 

Anyway, love that the Techies are posting

If anyone else is using ERSI or geospatial data for Real Estate or if you are interested, give me a shout. Would love to talk about what you are doing and how you are putting things together.  

@Jonathan Trimboli Great Question and other than the capital part I am in the same boat as you are. I have been learning as much as I can so I can start with larger Multi-Family but I flip-flopped back and forth for about a year on where to start but am now focused on skipping SFR's.

I hope that you find great success and are able to connect with others that can smooth your journey. Kudo's to @Chris Coleman for not only suggesting that you partner up with people with experience but also gave you someone to start with. That's the beauty of BP and it so good to see that type of interaction.  

Also glad to see @Jonathan Orr offering to chat with you. Again a great example of the BP membership. 

@Shere Clark Have you worked with any Bigger Pockets Members in the past? Is there anyone willing to sing your praises? Sounds like a good service you are providing, just want to make sure it's not too good to be true if you know what I mean. 

Also an odd mix of states you work in. Any reason those states and not others currently? 

I paid for 2 the other day (I got them for $12 per course, normally $199).  The Real Estate Pro Forma Modeling Master Class and The Real Estate Equity Waterfall Modeling Master Class both by Justin Kivel who strangely enough is not a member of BP. 

I am about 2/3rds of the way done with the Pro Forma course and it is well worth the investment I paid for it. 

My driving factor is that I built my own spreadsheets from the information I had received from a few other Muli-Family investors/guru's and wasn't 100% sure I had gotten it correct. This course so far is walking me through not only how to build it but also what information you are including and why you include it. I may go back through a second time just to add notes to my model to help me out in the future. 

So although real estate related (number crunching) it's not about selling or raising capital (per se) but it was exactly what I was looking for and at a price that was well within my reach. 

If I understand the location correctly, and I may not because I don't frequent BR but everything North of the campus up and past the bridge and to the East of I10 about half a mile is in an Opportunity Zone. Now if we are talking SFR that really doesn't come into play but if you are looking for larger/longer term projects there may be some things to look at.

In just looking at the area it does seem a lot of nice new Mult-family or in this case, Student Housing complex projects have gone up recently. However, it could open the door for some really nice commercial or mixed-use investments that support the community in that area. 

@Davin Randolph, I suggest you read this book The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and low) Money Down as it can give you several ideas on how to break into Real Estate as the book title says. 

Also, do some research and find real estate groups/meetups in your area and attend and meet some people. 

@Seth Gary Welcome to Bigger Pockets. I'm right down the road in New Iberia and you will find a good amount of people from the Lafayette Area. There is a meet up every month in Lafayette hosted by @Robert Leonard which you should attend and there is also a group in Baton Rouge (The Ring) 

Sounds like you have a plan and hope you find what you are looking for!