All Forum Posts by: Joe Dunbar

Are y'all down for another meetup? I know traffic is still horrible but I could set a date for a week out or so. Let me know if we have already organized an official page, I will create another event in the evening mid-week or Friday if Friday is preferred. Let me know. 

Tony, I graduated in April and I am working as a developer for a REIT in Houston. Would love to do lunch and see if we could do some side projects in the future. I have a lot of things I am looking at after the Hurricane.

@Jay Hinrichs Way to Go! Thank you for posting the journey here. Lot size laws changed recently here in Houston so I am scrambling to catch up and see if I can make something of the opportunity. I just graduated and began work with a developer in Houston. Aside from ignorance, my biggest hurdle would be the equity stake and personal guarantee. 

Question: In Houston I believe I can apply for preliminary plat approval without owning the land. Would it be possible for me to find a good opportunity, get preliminary approval, buy the land, replat it and flip it to someone else to put in the infrastructure? This way my return could have less risk and I may be able to raise private money for the land purchase? 

Thank you 

@Jay Hinrichs, Thank you for a great thread. I had lunch with a civil engineer yesterday. He mentioned he just finished a job with a client here in Houston. They did almost the same thing you did, 2 lots into 24. $1 million in hard and soft costs, sold to builders for close to $3 million. I imagine that must not be the norm. 

Did you end up building the homes?

@Brandon Hall I am reaching out because I was unable to find anything on alternative minimum tax in the forums. Brandon, I feel like you would be able to help with the following question. I have been trying to do some tax planning for the future. I would like to manage a real estate fund as my day job in the future. lets just say hypothetically I am making $2 million a year from this and that is ordinary income. Hypothetically, my wife enjoys real estate so she works more than 750 hours in our personal investment real estate which would qualify her as a "real estate professional" which designation provides unlimited passive losses to ordinary income. We take our $2 milliion in ordinary income and my wife throws it into our personal real estate, we write off huge depreciation through property improvements and interest expense which brings our personal real estate into significant paper losses. we then use these significant paper losses to offset the $2 million in income. As long our as our personal real estate is a "business loss" (line 12 form 1040), can we avoid the alternative minimum tax ?

@Ana G. Thank you for your story. I am excited to hear the continuation. If I am any evidence, you have inspired many. 

Those numbers sound really good if you can hit them and if you can rehab fairly quickly. I will be moving to Houston soon but I do not have experience in that market yet. I would check out redfin.com and look at past sales in the area to get an idea. Hopefully some Houston investors will chime in. This sounds like an off market deal, I would be curious to hear more of the background on how you got it. 

@Broaderick Brown What is the breakdown of your rehab expenses? What will the apartments rent for?

@Gabe K. Congratulations! This may be a rookie question. In a market as strong as California, why did the owner let the foreclosure happen?  They must have been able to sell at even a slight discount to market, avoid foreclosure, pay of you and the 1st, and still have equity left on top of that. Now, their credit is trashed and they will wait 7 years to purchase on top of losing significant equity. I must be missing something.

@Chris Lynch I am also curious to hear what you have done with your career. I see your title says commercial agent. I have also been balancing the decision between RE agent and loan originator. My goals are the same as yours, to generate income to plow into investments. I am also attracted to a commission based pay structure.