All Forum Posts by: Jason Brown

Vinay H. Yeah I know. I lived the first 20 years of my life in Massachusetts so I can tell you that Miami is nothing like it. A lot of people don’t know this but Miami has the worst rent to income ratio in the United States. I intentionally priced my rental at 1200 because it was actually 200 below the market and it created a huge demand that allowed it to rent extremely quickly. I only had to do one open house the first week I listed it instead of running over there multiple times to do individual showings. If you do a rental property search for the whole city of Miami you will not find one 2/1 bathroom “house” (not apartment/condo/townhome) for rent under 1300. The rent here really is that crazy.

Mike H. Thanks. That’s a great idea turning the tile on a diagonal for the shower. I’ll definitely implement that in my next rehab especially if we run the same tile like we did with this one.

Guillaume D. Very inspiring! I am just starting my REI journey and it’s great to see someone succeed at such a young age. So what does your portfolio look like? What’s the make up? What’s your biggest multi family out of the group?

@Account Closed thanks. It was definitely just a cost decision. All we did was continue the same tile that we used for the floors on to the shower wall. It was cheaper and more convenient. Hahaha I know HGTV won’t be calling me for design tips any time soon lol

@Garrett Sanford thanks! I reached out to 1 local Miami investor and 1 out of state investor to get the private money funding. I'm not sure if I didn't clarify but i am actually self managing the property. My 200 cash flow excludes the 120 dollars (10% of rent) that I actually pay myself for running it. If I included that in my net CF then it would be approx. 320 per month and a significantly higher CoC return.

@Christopher Giannino thanks. No honestly there is no secret to it. I had originally expected the home to appraise for about 120K so i went into my lender looking to pull out 90K which would have been 75% of that. Its only when the appraisal came back at 135K a few days ago that I had the option to pull out all of my investment. I suppose I could still pull out the rest of my money giving me an infinite CoC return but I had just assumed to leave about 40% equity in the property in an effort to be conservative. Maybe not the best idea? What do you think?

@Account Closed thanks! YEAH the pedestal sink in the bathroom was something I actively contemplated! The vanity, which i picked up from home depot, was the option i went with only because I had "tried to put myself in my potential tentant's shoes" and thought that with the small size of the bathroom and no medicine cabinet where would my tenants put their bath things and would the rental be less appealing without any real bath storage. Obviously its manufactured wood so i know its going to take a beating but i guess that's just something I've got to work on and mature as i try to evaluate decisions more from a business stand point and not from the perspective of living there myself.

For the kitchen i did actually go for real plywood cabinets because i didn't want to invest in something that I would have to then replace in two years after it got wet and started to swell and break down like the IKEA and other particle board options so that wasn't so bad.

Now for the issue of bandit signs I can't lie they are definitely NOT allowed in my area. My 2 am bandit sign adventures were definitely exhilarating partly due to the fact that I was looking behind my back then entire time to make sure I didn't get caught placing them. The reason i wasn't particularly concerned is because my target area is a popular investor / small business owner area and you can see bandit signs on every street corner from wholesalers, lawn services, tv internet services, junk car removal services and others. I did receive an automated phone call from a local inspector to come and take them down after a period but once i did and alerted them to that they stopped calling me. Its all a calculated risk and understanding what you can and can't get away with in your own farm area.

Lastly as for selling I did actually receive a few offers but unfortunately none of them ever panned out. I had initially started this journey to create a rental portfolio so i guess I was just working from the perspective of creating equity in the renovation and using the refinanced funds as my "doomsday egg/next deal proceeds" if that makes sense.

Thanks for your insights I'll take them any way i can get them.

Elvis Vasquez thanks!

Joseph M. Thanks. Yeah liberty city, allapattah, Brownsville, all these areas are seeing the same upswing in prices that midtown, wynwood and little Havana have experienced. Right now I’m solely focused on investing locally in Miami. I think after a couple properties when I’ve been able to mature a little more as an investor and implement systems that really help me scale I’ll look outside of SF towards the north or even out of state.

Nick Britton thanks. Wow 18k loss? I’m glad you were able to see the positive and walk away with lessons learned. I know not all of my deals will be successful so it’s good to see someone with the long term attitude and perspective that i know I’ll need in order to be successful in this business.