All Forum Posts by: Stone Jin

@Mark Weinstein we invest in the Toledo area but not in rough neighborhoods.  We found a niche where there is demand and no supply for nicer property in the suburbs.  The OOS game is not about PTR because on paper, the houses in crap neighborhoods always have a higher ratio then good neighborhoods.  My advice is that once you narrowed down to a city or 2, start talking to property managers to seeing where they see tenants staying the longest, what zip codes do they see rent growth and consistent payment.  Days on market for rentals before being rented etc.  

@Kyle H. Invest where the numbers makes sense and live where you want to live as the "real estate guys" say.  It really depends on how much capital you have to start with.  I'm sure you can talk to many CA investors who rent in CA and invest OOS where the cashflow is more significant.  That cashflow then offsets their rent and they are living for "free" without having roommates or sharing walls.  

If you are trying to leverage the owner occupied loans of 3% or 3.5% fha, then you have to live in it, but you only have to do it for a year.  So live where you want for a year and then rent it out or live in it for 2 years so you can also get the tax advantage if you decide to sell.  You can combine this with the "live in flip" strategy.  Buy the worst house in a good neighborhood and during your 2 year stay fix it up so when you sell you can take all the profit tax free.

@Delia Washington Financing in today's world is mostly done online.  My broker in Phoenix got her license in Ohio for me and originates loans with no issues.  Since this is your first investment property, you should talk to a few local brokers.  They may even tell you if the deal is good or not as they probably see quite a few similar deals go across their desk.

My advice to you would be to fly out to Toledo and drive the neighborhoods.  If you are buying lower end homes, 1 street will make the difference between profit and loss.  Also investing out of state you need to up your typicial expenses as you are relying 100% on other people to work for you.  

@David Smith Can I ask why you want 70 SF houses? Doing the math, you want to cashflow $7500 a month if I'm not mistaken. There are easier ways to get to $7500 a month than with 70 SFH. I think you need to first figure out how to get more seed money than 30K. What is your plan to purchase the 1st 2 properties?

@Stephen Sokolow

Sylvania hollland maumee

@Stephen Sokolow If you are looking at 10K houses, the crime rate would be high no matter the city.  We invest in the suburbs and never even have to consider crime.  There are pockets of the city where the ratio of price to crime is probably more ideal than the suburbs.  Best of luck.

@Thomas Grove

I've used Tim Hoffman before for home inspection.  The one thing I like about him is that he will do a consult (inspection without the fancy report) for a fraction of the price.

https://www.homeinspector.org/HomeInspectors/Find/Details/18220AH/Toledo/OH/Homespec-LLC-Inc

Lately, I've just been using my contractor to walk the property.  Good luck

@Bryan Satter We are OOS investors in the Toledo market.  We like Ottawa Hills and Old Orchard neighborhood around UT.  I personally wouldn't invest in student housing although UT is a commuter school.  We like the western suburbs a lot and look to expand even more so this year.   Good luck investing

@Michael Mai

You can arbitrage using the 70K, as long as you can get a return greater than 4.125% then you would be net positive.  Also, it's good to pull out the equity while you have it and the interest is super low.  Let's say you don't and the equity stays roughly the same but interest rates are up 1 point, then this decision would be harder.

Best of luck.