All Forum Posts by: John Vo

Hey BP! I'm a new investor would like to ask your help to analyze a BRRRR deal for a single family house. I have not seen the property yet, as this is a wholesale deal that was just sent to me, but I am familiar with the area. Here's the info and what I've got so far in my analysis:

- 3 bed/ 2 bath SFH

- 1862 SQFT

-1.5 Stories building

-Year build: 1980

Asking Price: $117,000

Comps: 12 months, 1.5 miles, 1.0 miles, .5 miles and within subdivision suggest price range of $165K-$170K

Rental Comps: 12 months 1.5 miles and 6 months 1.5 miles suggest price range of $1350-$1500/ month

Estimated repairs: From seller disclosure there's foundation issue, plumbing, electrical, ceiling, doors and general update in the house. I estimate repairs to be $30K - $35K based on pictures, seller disclosure, and what I would do to update the property to get it rent ready.

Estimated closing and finance cost with allowance for 3 months of rehab is approximately $9000.

My strategy is to use hard money to pay for the property and rehab it. When the rehab is done, I intend to rent it out and then refinance the property to move on to the next deal. What are your thoughts? Is this a good deal for the BRRRR strategy?

Rebecca Z. I don't think I follow your train of thought completely. So let me break it out into two questions: 1) I believe one of your questions were "would a 15 year or 30 year mortgage be better in terms of paying off the loan quicker?" I personally do 30 year payment on my primary residence and make extra payment to the principal if I have extra cash at the end of the month to pay down my principal balance. My strategy in doing this is to have the lowest monthly payment possible so that I have extra cash available to go towards real estate deals. Your strategies are different than mine so take that into consideration when looking at 15 or 30 year mortgage. 2) I believe you said you wanted to take out a HELOC after closing on your primary residence in order to pay down the balance quicker. I would advise against this since HELOC interest rate are almost always higher than a 15 or 30 year mortgage as well as they're a variable interest rate. In addition, you would have to have more than 20% equity in the property in order to qualify for a HELOC. This is how they calculate how much of a HELOC loan you would qualify for: 80% of property appraise value - balance of 1st lien loan.

Papa A. Diop that's a better rate of return than me on my last postcards campaign. I personally mailed out 500 postcards and did not get a single phone call. I know they were delivered because my neighbor coincidently was the mail carrier who delivered it. I am in the process of mailing out another 500 postcards to the same list. Keep at it, it takes several touches to produce a result.

I personally liked to work with inspectors who are real estate investor friendly...i.e they would not be afraid to give me a general estimate in their opinion of how much it would cost to fix something with the understanding that I would need to confer with a contractor/professional for final estimate. But at least this would give you a general idea of what it cost to fix something. Other than that, the usual how long have you been an inspector, do you belong to any real estate inspection association such as NAHI or InterNachi, can you provide a sample copy of your inspection report, how long should you expect to received a copy of the report and the big important question of how much does the inspection cost and how long does it take to do the inspection. 

@Ali Sheik I thought the same way, until I started comparing banks for HELOC recently. Some banks do offer interest rate lock such as BBVA Compass, and Chase. Banks differ on how many rate locks you can have during the draw period. Some have 3 as maximum and some doesn't have a maximum. For example, if you withdraw $10K when you open the account, and then another $10K 6 months down the road, you can rate lock the fist $10K at say 4% and then the 2nd $10K at say 4.25% since the interest rate vary. I'm doing a HELOC on my primary residence right now and here's the kicker, there's no closing cost for me. The bank paid for it. I used this little brochure to compare the banks that I called:

http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201204_CFPB_HEL...

I called 3 national banks, 3 regional banks and 3 credit union to see whose HELOC program would work for me.

I assumed you're talking about a triplex? Or duplex? 

I would refer you to the 1% rule of thumb. You can search for it in the forums and blog as this subject has been referred to quite often. 

@Ali Sheik Here's another option for you. Instead of doing a cash-out refinance where you would immediately have a monthly payment, why not consider a HELOC? This is essentially a credit card that's secured by your property. Like any other credit card, you would only need to pay for what you used. If you don't take out an advance then you would pay nothing. The cash draw period can be anywhere from 10-20 years depending on the bank. Also there's currently several banks that offer interest rate lock on your cash advance during the draw period. This way you can get access to funds for your deals when you need it vs. having to withdraw funds when you don't need it and pay interest during that period.

@Brandon L. I used a free theme from Tyler Moore and it seems to be working out for me. His instructional video link is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd0grLQ4voU

I used wordpress plugin called Contact Form 7 for lead capture that will email me their contact info  and their comments/questions. Google Analytic can track specific pages and hence specific listings if you create a link that take someone to a specific property pages. There's also CRM plugins such as WPForms that you can use, not sure if this is free or a paid app, as my website do not have a CRM function. Be careful in using too many plugins as it'll slow down your load speed. 

I think I understand what you're trying to do, and for that kind of website it takes advance programming/knowledge for the website to function correctly. I would suggest you go with Top Producer if you want to be up and running quickly. Otherwise it'll take time to learn and understand how to create a website that has all of your requirement. 

@Travis Eubanks& @Shane Hedeen I paid for the hosting and website name for 3 years, using HostGator when I started. So if I had to break it down as a monthly expense, it would cost me about $7/month to create and maintain my website. I'm with you on the website from our broker, its nice, but I wanted my own for advertising purposes. I don't pay anything for the IDX, it's free from my local MLS. So check yours to see if they have a widget/code that you can use for free. If it's not free then I wouldn't worry about it. A lot of other successful agent I know, who have their own website don't even have that function. The main point is to use the website as another way to get your name out there. Also there's wordpress plugins you can use that will increase security to your website, but the best security measure is to only put information that you want other people to know about on you on your website.

Nathan Murray I concur 100%. I looked at "deals" for several months on this website and the price is market rate...sometimes more than market rate. So I just stopped looking on this site and looked at the MLS instead.