All Forum Posts by: Joseph Castaneda

@Russ Draper thanks yes the 15 years are super attractive right now. The increase in payment is minimal compared to the 30 yr due to lower rates on the 15 yr. That's a great option.

@Brian Sherman I would do a 30 year fix loan. @Evan Bell & @Brendan J. This is what get's me excited about real estate. The returns you can get on money you personally have in the deal is astronomical! However I think I can take $210K out in refinance at 4.5% on a 30 year fixed and cash flow about $200 per month after P&I, Taxes and insurance. House should need very little maintenance considering I just put $30K into it. I'm leaning towards leaving as little equity in it and letting the equity build up again over time through principle pay-down (with renter's money!) and appreciation. Because in your example, if a calculate returns while counting the $130K in equity left in the property as my money the returns aren't as great. In my market it is difficult to find something worth buying under $200K (Right now, but we may have a correction). Thanks for the input guys! It helps to know other people out there with similar mindsets! 

Ok her is the situation. I purchased this single family home in North Miami Beach, FL five years ago for $120K (Cash no Mortgage) and immediately rented it to the previous owner for $1,500 per month (Aproximatley 10% return per year in cashflow). The tenant recently moved out and I have just invested another $30K in renovations to the home. So my total investment into it is $150K. The two options I'm debating between is: 1. Do I sell it for $280K and take the capital gains? 2. Put a tenant in there for $1,800 per month and do a 70% LTV cash out refinance which will give me money to buy another property and do it over and over again? I am more geared towards a buy and hold investment strategy with a few fix and flips thrown into the mix. I'm not looking for a ton of cash flow right now but I am more concerned with building long term wealth by buying more properties. Right now I have the property listed for rent. These are the questions that go through my head. I want to manage my real estate investment portfolio in all the right ways. Your input is greatly appreciated!

I also do stay active in the gated community. I'm an active tennis player and I have embroidered all my tennis outfits with my logo. I also hang by the pool and go to the restaurants on the island. I have been here for ten years but only started my company a year ago and this community is a hard nut to crack. But I live here and will not stop until I do.Sometimes I think to stop mailing because I get so much more bang for my buck with online advertising. But I will continue to do both. I think mailing the post cards more frequently and in a more targeted way to owners of more than five years I will get a better result. I will give it a solid year and reevaluate then. Thanks!

Brandon L. Robert Smith thanks. Correction there were only 87 units sold in the past twelve months. Super low turnover however there are currently 190 units on the market for sale. I live in a international luxury market and because of the strong dollar, a big run up in property values over the past four years and a ton of new construction we are going through a shift in the market where sellers still have not gotten realistic on the value of their condo. There is one dominant brokerage office that has about 15% market share. I do nice post cards 6x11 gloss. I also mail custom letters on high end stationary sealed with hot wax and my emblem every time a listing expires in my community offering a free certified appraisal which I do myself and present to them at the listing appointment. I also have Google Adwords going for search and retargeting with display ads. I was only doing the post card mailing every three months but I am now stepping it up to every 6 weeks. I mail a quarterly market report and now I will send a list of most recent sales in between the quarterly reports. Once I get some listings I will send just listed and just sold. Average selling price is $394 a square foot for the past twelve months but that number is expected to go down.

I checked the average and most were over five years since their last sale. So I think my list is good. There were 132 sales in the past 12 months.

There are about 2,200 condos in my community. Thanks!

Greetings, What would be the best criteria for a Realtor to use when creating a mailing list for a neighborhood you are farming and want to target the home owners in that neighborhood who are most likely to sell? Would you target all owners who have owned their home for five years or more? Any other criteria you would use? Just by using the the home owners who have owned five years or more I get about 1,000 home owners which is the size of the list I'm looking to mail to. I'm not concerned if they have equity or not. I just want to optimize my mailing list so that I am not mailing to home owners who have little to no chance of selling. Thanks!