All Forum Posts by: Jacob A.

If you are looking to flip at all think about this. Using your HELOC is going to make you a cash buyer. Being a cash buyer is going to put you at a substantial advantage over someone that needs a lender's approval.

A HELOC is going to be about your absolute best financing choice. Many banks are offering HELOC's at prime right now which is dirttttt cheap financing. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of threads on BP discussing various financing options. Absent spending all cash, you will not find a much cheaper option that a HELOC. Why not use the equity in your home for something useful!

@Bryan H.

I can't give you a very in depth answer here, but I'll give you as much as I have. Goldsboro is kind of your typical eastern NC farm town. I don't think there's much going on there. I'll put it this way, I've lived here my whole life and I've only been there once or twice. Now, that's not to say there isn't an opportunity there for a rental property but it is by no means a booming metropolis. I'd be much more inclined to shoot for something closer like Wendell, Garner or Smithfield if you want to shoot for the east. Just my two cents for what it's worth.

I actually had this same situation pop up about 6 months ago and happen to know the head of the inspection department here in town and called him up. He basically told me exactly what J mentioned above. They will charge you an arm and a leg to bring it up to code and that's if your lucky. If they don't like what they see they can make you start completely from scratch. There are penalties and backed fees that they will charge you to have to come in after the fact. I haven't directly dealt with it yet but it sounds like a messy ordeal. If there's room in the budget though, I'm sure it's do-able but it looks like you are already dealing with a pretty tight budget as is.

You have to think about this from a lenders point of view. It's going to take a conventional lender a certain amount of time to recoup the costs they incur. The longer they have a loan on the books, the more money they make. Therefore, you are going to be hard pressed to find a conventional lender to give you the money to do a flip and turn around and pay off the loan in 6 months. Hard money or private money is going to be your best bet. Take some time, save some cash and get yourself educated most importantly. Deals will always be there so make sure you are prepared for it when you decide to jump in.

I found a program through Wells Fargo that will finance the purchase and rehab. The only problem is you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get the cash. You're going to need good credit, meet DTI standards, have 20% down atelast, then the bank is going to want to do thorough background checks on your contractor, appraisals, double check your repairs estimate to be sure its accurate, yada yada yada. It is do-able for sure but they don't make it very convenient, nor should they.

Hoboken no jokin! Sorry I heard it on an episode of kitchen cousins and couldn't contain myself.

@Andriy Boychuk

Make sure you check your state tax code as well. Here in NC there are also credits that you can take on your state return for the restoration of historic homes.

@Account Closed

That's something else I thought about when we listed it. For some reason my agent advised against it and I didn't anticipate having this much of an issue selling the home. However, it's definitely something I will but in my bag of tricks for future houses and may consider looking into it on this one if it continues to sit.

@Account Closed

As I am writing this I finally got an agent to submit written feedback to some questions. They said there were well kept homes nearby, the price was "about right", the curb appeal was good and the interior was clean and well kept. The last question asks if their buyer is considering the home and the answer is "not sure". Atleast this provides me assurance that I'm on the right track. At this point I'm not sure what to do and maybe I can just chalk it up to the time of year. I plan on dropping the price and maybe putting something in the description about taking care of $1,000 of closing costs or something in the near future is nothing happens. I appreciate the feedback it is very helpful to hear other investors opinions on the situation.