All Forum Posts by: Justin B.

In my mind, it's a matter of which situation gives you a better return now and later. If you have $10k and you're trying to decide to either pay down a loan or use it for a down payment for the next property, would the additional property's returns be greater than the interest being paid on the current property?  At the end of the current property's loan, what would your returns  look like versus what would your portfolio look like if you were to continue to grow? There are so many variables that come into play and a lot of them depend on your goals and circumstances.

To me and for my situation, it's important to grow my portfolio of properties sooner than later because it's the summation of income streams that amount to wealth. It's the number of properties that make the paycheck. 

Check out this post where Loren Thomas used self leveling resin over a faux finished counter top. It turned out really nice from what I can tell from the pictures. Oringina How-To link included in the post. 

I will certainly be using this technique when the time comes in my rentals. 

9000 Total Rent

8100 Gross Rent@10% Vacancy Rate

1000 T&I

900 CapEx@10% Total Rent

1900 Total Expenses

6200 NOI

4380 DS

1820 CF Annual or $151/mon

... is what I come up with. Am I missing something? Perhaps you were taking the percentage from your running sum?

Anyways, I would probably look for a deal with a little more meat on the bone, so to speak. Mainly because, as stated above, you need a little more wiggle room since you haven't accounted for 10% PM or a little more for maint/repairs. 

Yes I've been hitting that brick wall a lot the past couple months. I visit plenty of homes that would be great for this strategy but are cash only deals. In fact, just a couple days ago I had an offer rejected because they decided at the last minute that the property was cash only. I'm still shy to the HML route.

@Joe Villeneuve I would love to adopt your model! I assume you have to take on credit partners who is comfortable with leverage and have the available loans in order to keep that train rolling. 

For those of us wondering, how would it affect your strategy if the initial purchase was a loan? I assume there's the extra closing costs and one would need two available loans; one acquisition, one for refi. 

I've never used it but Google Sketch is a free 3D modeling software and it integrates with Google Maps.

I wouldn't paint anymore than needed. It sounds obvious but my point is you want to minimize the cost of labor/material. Same with carpet. 

However, when the time does come to have to do some work, consider adopting a 'tenant proofing' strategy. What I mean is use products that stand up to higher traffic and carefree tenants. So if you have to rip up carpet in the living room, consider installing laminate flooring. And if you have to replace the linoleum in the kitchen, consider tile; use a durable vinyl in the bathrooms; easily cleanable semi-gloss paint on the walls...

To me those products improve the quality of the property, possibly allowing you to increase rents and they seem to stand the test of time (and negligent tenants). 

Brandon wrote this article on his interior paint study

From what I understand of the process (my last property was HUD owned), you can low ball the offer and they will counter back with what is the minimum they will accept; the threshold. By low balling, you've flushed out their number and you counter back with that number. It's just a formula, no more strategy than that. This is only what I understand of the process, I could be wrong.

Now I've also heard something about buying the property in an LLC, then selling the LLC (and the property in it) as a work around for the "single owner" rule. I actually only recently heard of this in conversation and have done ZERO research regarding the strategy. It's clever.

I actually moved from Snellville years ago, which is right next to Stone Mountain. You can see the granite from many of the neighborhood streets. During the housing market crash, someone-I-was-close-with's home went from $150k to a foreclosed value at $50k (like many places). But maybe unlike other places, Snellville was surrounded by Lithonia and Stone Mnt/Clarkston which is an area dominated by class C and D homes. When Snellville became affordable, those areas bled into Snellville. Needless to say, that market never fully recovered. This is just my interpretation. 

That's really just a background story. If I were to purchase properties, it would be closer to the east side of Stone Mnt, not on the west side neighboring Clarkston. 

Of course I have not done a market study from a real estate perspective but growing up in Dekalb Co, I was kinda scared of those areas. 

I hope this helps.

Wow, that really is a 10x goal! Well, for me it is anyways. 

What's your plan to get there? Do you have a year to year break down for your acquisition, funding, and scaling strategy?

I love hearing how others plan to attain their goals. It inspires me.