All Forum Posts by: JOHN DALEY

I am brand new to investing and have a question about comps. So I found a 2 bed/2 bath house on an acre of land. There is a place I found where I can put a 3 bedroom (1500 square feet). Cabinets can stay but it needs new flooring, paint, landscaping, and bathrooms. It is a foreclosure and price dropped to 30K. Comps for 3/2 in the area are between 150 and 200, but it is a manufactured home and I can’t find any other manufactured homes that have sold recently in that town. I have to go a town over to find one. Is there a way to comp a manufactured home to a regular home?

I bought a house last year for 200,000. It was a new build that had been sitting for a year (mainly cause of terrible marketing by the construction company. The house was 10x better than what the pictures showed). It is 30 minutes south of Birmingham, AL and is in a subdivision that had 400-500K houses in the front and 100-250K houses in the back. Brand new hardwood floors, fence included as well as a fridge. Complete ranch, 4 bedroom/2 bath house on a quarter acre. Bought it with a VA Loan and I put no money done. It is also in one of the better school districts around Birmingham. After a year, I got a new job and moved to Asheville, NC. We were going to sell and brought in a real estate agent who said our house was worth 187,000. Another real estate agent said the same thing. There were multiple houses around us that were smaller than our house that were trying to sell for 230,000 or more and had been sitting there for four months so we believed them and decided to rent (I had been wanting to invest in real estate but knew very little about it so I wasn’t going to object). Needless to say, it took us two months to get renters (these renters have stayed they wish to purchase the house in the future, but they want to put both the husband and wife on the loan and need to rebuild the wife’s credit) and all the houses in the subdivision that had been sitting sold. We are renting it for 1450 with a mortgage of 1106 an 100 going to the property manager. I live in Asheville, NC now and really want to invest in real estate in the area but don’t really have the Capitol to begin investing around here. And, since I have been researching and educating myself over the last couple of month, I realize that while I am making positive cash flow on the house, it really isn’t great. So, do I stay with renters who I know are interested in purchasing the house in the future (I plan on approaching them in eight months to see if they can buy), sell the house no matter what next year and use the profit to invest in Asheville,or just keep renting it out because I can get positive cash flow out of it (it is in the best subdivision in the town with a golf course at the front. The subdivision is in high demand with the builders building eighty new houses and the houses being sold within a month). Also, I have the only 4 bedroom complete ranch in the subdivision, all others are two floors or three bedrooms. The new houses being built are 3 bedroom houses on small lots and I own one of the bigger lots in the “peasant” part of the subdivision. Advise on next steps? I am currently 27 and long term goal is to have enough passive income to retire with my pension from my job when I am 50.

Hi Johannie. I lived in Atlanta for over a decade and went to college around Atlanta so I am speaking from my own experience. Atlanta metro keeps expanding every few years. Right now in the North, Cumming, Georgia is really growing. It is about a forty minute drive North of the city without traffic and up to 90 minutes in rush hour. It is also about 30 minutes from the University of North Georgia and I know many students who look to rent in the Dawsonville/Cumming Area. It is also about a twenty minute drive to the heart of Alpharetta and maybe an hour to the Mall of Georgia in Lawrenceville. You are also about thirty minutes to an hour from several small but beautiful towns (Helen and Dahlonega) and about an hour from hiking in the mountains. You are also on the North side of Atlanta so less traffic when going to Braves Games. On the South Side, I would recommend looking in the Fayetteville/Peachtree City/Sharpsburg/Newnan Area. In Fayetteville, there is a major movie studios where the film the entire Marvel Series and many other movies. Fayetteville was a good buy about two decades ago, house prices went down in 2008 a lot, but right now they are trying to rebuild. They just built a brand new apartment complex in the town. Peachtree City is an expensive area, but this area has miles and miles of golf cart paths that connect the city so you don’t need a car to drive or walk anywhere. Sharpsburg is a quiet little town mostly made up of families and the houses hold pretty good value there, but houses aren’t on the market very long there usually. Newnan has grown a lot over the last decade, but it is built up pretty well and could be another good investment. It is also about an hour from Columbus, GA and about four down to Jacksonville and the beaches of Florida. There are also several warehouses down on the South Side of Atlanta (I believe in the McDonough area) that may warrant a look. Being on the Southside is also much closer to the airport (you could get there in under 30 from most of these areas I listed above) which could be something that interests you since you said you travel a lot for work. These areas are just from my experience living there from 2000 to 2014. You also may want to do a lot of research on Amazon. Atlanta is in the running to get their HQ so if they do decide to build in Atlanta, it may impact your decision.

Also, look at the Mobile Home University Forums. They have a lot of details as well.

I have been trying to find information for mobile home investing. I don’t have a lot of capitol so starting out with mobile homes and trying to flip them is how I want to start and move up to purchasing a park. I have been listening to a podcast called Mobile Home Park Investing by Kevin Bupp and Charles Dehart and they go into a lots of details about mobile parks.

@Bill F I am new to this whole real estate thing and am learning. Would you mind breaking down your calculations and how you got them?

@Rob Beardsley My end goal right now is to get into mobile trailer parks and to own mobile trailer parks. But, I don’t have the capitol to get to that point yet. But I don’t see myself starting out doing that immediately. I want to get my feet wet and start out in a spot where I partner with someone and start to get to know the industry. I want to spend the next year building capitol and selling the rental house I currently own to use as a DP for my first property. I am hoping that if I find a great deal, I can get an experienced partner to go in with me and teach me the ropes. Starting out though, I am still debating on whether or not it would be wise to jump straight into Mobile trailer parks or start off in another industry and work my way up to them.

I am new and have been trying to develop a strategy for how I want to do real estate. I haven’t decided on my niche yet as I am trying to do research on all of them with the goal being that I would like to purchase any first property by the end of next year. I was just curious about what strategies did you all follow when starting out? Did you start out wholesaling or flipping or just jump in with a partner for the first few to learn the ropes or something else?

@James Waligora I wouldn’t be opposed to buying in Birmingham in the future (5+ years from now) but I first want to focus on markets within an hour of me. The house I currently have in Birmingham was a brand new build that I got a good deal on because the builder was trying to build 80 more homes in the subdivision and was trying to unload houses already built. We had to move because of my job so me and my wife decided to rent it out instead of selling it. I am currently looking at a house that would be a fix and rent in my area, but I am still trying to figure out the estimates on it. I saw it on Zillow on Monday, so this weekend I was going to sit down and do the math on it.

My name is John Daley (no I am not the golfer. My parents named me after my grandfather and not the golfer). I am 27 years old and currently work in Supply Chain. I currently own one rental property just outside of Birmingham, Alabama and want to expand and continue to own several more. I have been interested in real estate for several years but never really had the time to truly study and begin to invest until now. I have two goals. First goal is to convince my wife to invest in real estate, as she is terrified about losing money and doesn’t want to risk it (it took us a couple of months to get tenants in our rental property so that scared her off a little bit). So, I am wanting to find a deal that she will be comfortable with. Me and my wife also have a goal to travel North America in an RV for two years when we are 50 years old. So, I would like to have a developed real estate portfolio by then so that I can use that as my full time job when I retire at 50 and work from my RV. I look forward to interacting with you all on the forums!