All Forum Posts by: Jeffrey M.

@Eric Wang if you can get to Spokane in 2 hours, I want to see photos of your hot rod :)

Beginner here, so YMMV, but its pretty tight with a lot of competition from homeowners looking to buy so finding bargains (with cash flow) have been a challenge for me personally. We have a significant number of people relocating here from Seattle, Portland, CA, etc. so sales happen fast, usually within days and over a weekend.

I intend to do limited rehabs on our investments but at the current time I am avoiding major rehabs here in Spokane. I just walked on a good house that needed structural and a 20K wiring re-do just because I want my first investment to be somewhat simple. Why? I'd say that the post by @Brenda E. spells out the same concerns that I have.

Somewhat of a tangent: 

To anyone confused about where Eric is focusing, note that this is the local Seattle forum and Eric mentioned "Spokane" in his original post so its safe to assume Spokane or maybe Seattle.

One thing I dislike about the BP forum is that when I post in Spokane forum I almost always get non-Spokane replies (that said I have gotten some good out of town replies). I guess people just see a new post and reply without knowing what local forum they're in or not reading the full text of the OP. A bit of a flaw in the BP forums, imo but so be it.

I canceled my Rentometer subscription today. My PM had way, way better intel, basically a $250 swing in rental price (with rentometer basically being $250 too low).

What I suspected. Thank you @Art Perkitny and @Michael DeHaan!

Hey local Spokane investors!

As a new investor one of the hardest things I've found is when "running numbers" in the BP calculators the input for monthly rent is a major "guess" for me. There have been a lot of other challenges too but most I can verify with hard metrics, somewhat scientifically. It makes me a little anxious when an important input is a MAJOR guess.

I just joined Rentometer as a pro member and its got some decent features but I have to admit, I don't know what they're doing behind the curtain and wonder aloud here how well they do here in Spokane. I assume that the math they use is location agnostic but I am wondering:

a) anyone here use rentometer and found it accurate?

b) anyone feel an experience human like a savvy realtor or property manager has better estimation skills.

I have just started reaching out to Property Managers by the way... I do intend to use one if financially feasible.

Thank you.

Jeff, did you get any recommendations? If not, try posting directly to the Spokane forum: 
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/771-spokane-real-estate-forum

Bummer, I just saw this. I would have loved to send my wife Viktoria down there. Will there be another meetup soon?

I'm new to all this so if this is a dumb question, please forgive me: what's the advantage of HELOC over a cash out refinance? I found that cash out refi's have a much better rate.

@Chris Mason

>> Every round of back and forth is an opportunity for someone to swoop! You had 'em @ $190k, should have taken it.

Yep, you're right. The counters were quick, within 12 hours but that still gave another buyer a shot.

Ironically I was doing numbers on this house for over a week and at the same time figuring out the financing angles. I had a lot of plates spinning at once.

I truly try to think of these things transactionally. I have no emotional attachments to the houses. My wife on the other hand, is another story... I have to manage that :)

thank you for the feedback.