All Forum Posts by: JD Castillo

you can always go to meetup.com and look up local real estate meetups. Dennis Henson has the AREA meetup and I definitely recommend that one!

When deciding to change windows and 50% of the sold comps have new windows and 50% don't...i walk outside in the front yard and look at the houses around me. if the 3 houses accros the street have new windows...there's your answer.

if you are going to buy fix and rent the house and it isn't in condition to qualify for conventional financing, the best way to buy is using a hard money loan that converts to a conventional loan once the rehab is done. not all hard money loans do that so shop around. i know sherman bridge does in the Texas market.

however if you are flipping a property i feel it's best to max out the ARV as high as you can get approved for when deciding to buy, hence increasing your potential profit spread. always make sure you have all your ducks in a row and all of your contractors set and ready to go the day of closing. the sold comps in your area should have low days on market. time is money...especially when using hard money! if you make sure all of that is done...hard money is a great way to leverage your available cash.

brian,
I'll give you some advice my grandpa gave me; "Hang out with people who you want to be like."

a "mentor" isn't necessary per-say but if you want to be an investor, hang out with investors. talk real estate. learn all you can and when you see the right deal jump in head first!! if you loose $6k on your first deal...you just paid $6k to learn more than ANY mentor could teach you.

i had an old man who spent a lifetime investing give me a piece of advice,

“If you want to be an investor you are going to need three things; Time, Money and Experience. If you don’t have one or two of those things then you need to partner with someone who does.”

Be careful paying too much for training. there are plenty of ways to get training for free. every seminar that you buy will only lead you to another training and another training and another....

go to meetup.com and find meetups that you can go to for little to no money and network and learn as much as possible. figure out what part of investing you want to do i.e. wholesaling, renting, flipping loans etc...then focus on it and learn all you can.

set a deadline for your first deal and stick to it. be ready to make a quick decision. analysis paralysis plagues so many new investors.

good luck to you!!

they have a software program that they charge $80 a month for called quest. it works pretty well but if you're in dallas, fort worth, san antonio houston or atlanta you can also use www.InvestorBlock.com and it's 100% free.

I have a house with asbestos siding and i painted it and it looks pretty good. if other houses in the area have asbestos as well, make sure when you are trying to sell it, you comp your property with other asbestos houses. to cover it with either hardy board or do brink in front and do siding on the rest of the house it is going to cost about 5-8k depending on how big your house is. when deciding what to do with the property; run two sets of comps. if houses that have brick and hardy are selling for over 8k than the regular asbestos houses then the decision is easy.