All Forum Posts by: Joseph Sangimino

Congrats Johnny! That's fantastic, especially working out of state. I personally think if neither you or your business partner have managed investment real estate before, that you take the first property slowly. I think the learning curve is pretty steep on the first property and its better to take it slow, manage it well, implement systems to "perfect" the first one so that its easily scalable to a lot of others. Once you have the first one down and some systems in place your confident with, I think you can go crazy from there. My fear would be getting too deep into too may properties at once which leads to inefficiency and lots of wasted $$$ without a number of systems in place. 

I agree with Brian though that it has a lot to do with your risk tolerance. If you happen to stumble across an unbelievable deal/opportunity right after the first one, then a little inefficiency can be afforded especially if its a long term hold. 

Hope that helps...

I invest in Pittsburgh as well. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss the Pittsburgh market or if you need some boots on the ground. 

I bought a SFR last October to BRRRR and have a question about refinancing. I bought the property for 55k, put 17k into it, and it's now rented for 1200. It appraised for 78k when I bought it and I believe the ARV is 100k (being very conservative) - but that's AFTER it's completely renovated. I just did a nuts and bolts rehab to bring the property to a clean functional working condition as a rental - without any bells and whistles. To really get a great appraisal, I wanted to stain the kitchen cabinets, put in a tile backsplash, put on a new garage door for curb appeal, and potentially paint the house. I'm very anxious to refinance to reinvest that capital, but if wait a year or so, i can use the cash flow for the renovations.

Should I refinance now and reinvest, or should I complete the aesthetic work first and then refinance? Recommendations?

BS in civil and environmental engineering. I work as a design engineer and project manager. The project management skills have been huge for estimating rehab costs, timelines, and managing contractors. The engineering background has helped with a general understanding of plats, new build designs, structural issues, etc. 

I'm familiar with the outskirts of Pittsburgh: 30-60 min from downtown around most of the city. If you'd like to chat about some of the different areas, let me know. 

I have a general question about a seller financed deal I'm trying to put together... I've never done one before. In theory if my business is still within the first two years of operation, would a seller financed note be taken into consideration by banks for my debt to income ratio? For instance, if I had a seller financed property in my LLC for 500k, and WOULD be eligible for a 500k conventional loan WITHOUT taking the seller financed note into consideration, would I still be able to get bank financing for a personal loan? Remember that my business is still less than two years old and the income from my rentals is not yet considered income by the bank.

Thanks for the input Jay and Mike. The idea of putting a manufactured home on it may work, so I'll do some research and run the numbers on that. Otherwise, I'm going to stay away from the deal I think. 

I'm not aware of a way to refinish hardwood without sanding Shawn. Once it is sanded and refinished though, I'm under the impression you can continue to recoat it every so often and it will be a durable, long lifespan floor. 

All,

I may have stumbled across a unique opportunity to acquire a lot for dirt cheap in the West Mifflin area. It used to have a house on it, so all the utilities are right there and the lot would not be difficult to build on (at first glance at least). I would ideally like to put a duplex or triplex on it, but its zoned as a single family and that would be a difficult negotiation with the township (although I may try regardless). Anyway, I don't have the first clue about how to estimate construction costs for new singe or multi-family structure. Aside from getting actual quotes or baseline $/ft^2 range to run with, I don't know where to start. 

I'm basically looking for any/all advice pertaining to estimating new construction costs, assumptions, the main risks, etc - so I can perform a cash flow analysis for building a rental on this lot. Like I said, I'm just not sure how to begin analyzing this deal since new construction is so foreign to me. 

Thanks

I don't have a ton of experience, but I'm rehabbing a rental right now and have a couple recommendations for contractors in certain lines of work. Most of them are referrals and run only small crews (although I always verify they are licensed and insured). They take a little longer to complete the work, but the pricing is hard to beat if you can afford a little longer holding costs. Let me know if there's any specific services you're looking to get done. 

Surprisingly, I've also had some luck on an app called Thumbtack. You have to vet the contractors that post on it, but I've gotten a couple decent ones off of that. It's particularly good for small, miscellaneous jobs. 

Hi Paige! Welcome back to the Burgh! I usually go to ACRE and REI meetings in pitt, but I wont be next week since I need to finish a few things on a property. I'm from Cranberry and currently live in Canonsburg, PA. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I have a couple of ideas for areas that I would be looking at if I were actively trying to flip.