All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

That strategy is not going to work. You need to take a break and rethink what you are trying to accomplish. You already know there are no deals out there in the price point and strategy you want, but you are asking people to serve you some. They will, but they won't be good deals. They will be bad deals that you are asking people to tell you that they work. BRRRR is very hard everywhere now because the model doesn't make sense with interest rates this high. Also, with low inventory, it's hard to get the groundswell for a quick out value because the comps aren't there.

Any time someone comes into the forums and asks for deals anywhere that work, they are setting themselves up to get pitched disasters.

LPs vet the operator first, not the deal. The numbers are just that - numbers. Until you see the property in person the numbers are completely meaningless unless you have a working relationship with that listing broker for years. Everyone is hiding something at scale so when you just operate based on the numbers, you miss the whole show. That's my point.

When you say you want to prioritize cash flow over equity, you want to watch out for people honing in on that and selling you "good cash flow" deals which will be in D neighborhoods and will come with high capital expenditures and harder tenancies. There are towns that are not too far where there could be some options for you, but I would start going to real estate investor meetups and pair that with books and podcasts. You have to earn a mentor by showing up a lot and then your mentor will appear. If you ask for one too soon, people will just try to sell you on stuff that looks good and isn't.

I would just be careful hopping back in now as interest rates and low inventory are making it very difficult if you aren't finding your own off-market options to buy. I would get back to local real estate investor meetups so you can connect with locals to the area and kind of get back in the game slowly that way.

There isn't enough information in here about the current state of the house to be able to advise you, but I would think #3 is a definite no as it seems unnecessary from a cost perspective although that market has scale to accept it. Are you sure you can add 2,000 SF on such a small lot? I don't think that seems likely. With the limited info, I would say #1 is your smartest option but there are a lot of variables missing.

Why do you think the city would approve that and how are you planning on getting plumbing in?

You are asking all spreadsheet questions, which is what every investor who has been investing more than twenty years will tell you is wrong. A brand new calculator is just that, a calculator. It has nothing to do with real estate if you have never done a deal like this. You have to walk these properties, understand where the hidden costs are outside of the spreadsheets, and understand the geographic appreciation trend and migration and population as well, none of which will be in the questions you are asking.

If you are trying to come up with a way to finagle the occupancy requirements while using an amazing loan (that you earned based on your service) like a VA, I would say you are starting off on the wrong foot. The only thing you should be doing with a VA loan is using it the way it is intended. Not all VA loans are owner-occupied as the VA gives you an allotment so you can have multiple properties with VA loans depending on what they clear you for.

Those are video game calculations. You can't decide which one to choose based on the minimal information you provided. That's not even the tip of the iceberg; it's so far away. Have you bought commercial multi out-of-state before?

I have at least ten colleagues who have done flips or BRRRRs in Philly. Almost all of them have done very well, but you really have to know Philly block-by-block. You live there now? If so, you know how the neighborhoods break and that the appreciation trajectory can be diametrically opposed within a block. The wholesalers in Philly are comparatively decent in my opinion and there are still deals there.