All Forum Posts by: Jotham Busfield

Helpful websites:

- US Census

- US dept of labor and statistics

- Milken best performing cities 

- National multi-family housing council 

Hi Bohdan,

There is a book by David Lindahl called "Emerging Real Estate Markets" which is great.  He mainly stresses paying attention to population and job growth but covers a lot of helpful topics.

I live in Massachusetts and own two investment properties here, but looking to explore other markets in other states.  In addition to population growth and job growth, I am looking at:

- Unemployment and poverty rates

- Job sector diversity and service industry growth 

- Foreclosure and vacancy rates 

- Local leadership and vision for future growth 

- Average age of residents, % of ages 18-65 in the workforce

- Rent to purchase price ratio (purchase price / average annual rent total) 

J. Scott wrote a book on estimating rehab costs which I found helpful, they sell it in the BP store.  Worth buying  

Aside from negotiation, I believe they help with drafting/submitting the offer, drafting the initial P+S, and then at times handling the escrow check situation for any deposit funds as well as the final walk through.  I'm not a realtor, but I believe that covers it.

I found a FSBO deal and drafted the P+S myself, had my real estate attorney review it, and everything went very smoothly. It is a little different that way, as you have to continuously communicate with the seller yourself and balance what to communicate yourself vs. what to have your attorney communicate with their attorney. Mainly saves the seller money on commissions, but you can and should negotiate that into the offer price so that you save as well, in my opinion

- Jotham

Thanks Charlie and Steve!

This might be worth running by an attorney.  I would try to get the tenants to sign estoppel agreements stating what their current lease terms are, in order to make sure it adds up with previous owner's claims of lease details, although it might be too late for this if you already own the property. Otherwise, signing a month to month agreement sounds like a good plan to keep rents coming in short-term while you buy yourself time to evaluate...although if your gut is telling you they are bad, you might want to try to peacefully get them to leave ASAP so you don't run into future issues.  Good luck and congrats on the four-plex!

- Jotham

I am reaching out to thank Brandon, Josh, and the whole BP community. My wife and I just bought our first rental property recently in MA, have our second one under agreement now, and it would not be possible without BP, especially the podcast.

Around March of 2017 we wanted to start learning more about flipping, so I bought J. Scott's book, which clued us into BP, started listening to as many podcast episodes as I could, I think I have listened to at least 100, probably somewhere in the 125-150 range. This lead to the BP website and about 15 books recommended on podcast episodes. I read those and decided to pivot to buy and hold instead of flipping, mainly due to me working 70-90 hours per week at my other two jobs (I own my own coaching/therapy business in Lexington, MA called Think-diff Institute and also work full-time at the VA in Boston with homeless Veterans). The flipping project management seemed too time intensive for now, but we might incorporate that into some BRRRR projects down the road. Anyway, we did market research, settled on two areas of MA (Springfield and Worcester) and started putting together our team. We have done about 40-50 showings, which was a lot of work because it was always on Sundays (my only day off) but it allowed us to run numbers using the BP calculators and get a feel for the market prior to acting. Our first deal came from a For Sale By Owner opportunity because we were basically driving for dollars and investigating properties from MLS and from a listserv list, when we came across a for sale sign in a window of a three family house, called the number, owner occupant answered and let us in to see all three units, we drafted our own P+S that night and closed recently. I am using almost all of the BP tenant forms, and the book Brandon and his wife wrote on rental property investing (and the one on management) was extremely helpful for us.

I also followed a lot of BP forum threads and posted questions myself, with other BP member always willing to go out of their way to provide helpful information.

Because of BP, we are putting together a portfolio that will allow us to travel the world and retire early. Without BP, this would not have happened. So thank you, we really appreciate it! I hope this is another example of how even when working 70+ hours a week, real estate investing can still happen!

Jotham Busfield, Gorkha Properties

Does anyone know who to hire to have water sub-metered in Springfield, MA?

Does it have to be a third party service that charges you monthly, or can it be done by a plumber without monthly costs to third party?

Thanks!

Thanks for this info, really helpful. Are there any possible penalties when transferring to LLC, like bank demanding full payment of the note? I suppose we could look in the fine print for that. We are also lining up our team of attorney/accountant/etc now, so hopefully that clarifies some of these details too. Thanks for the help Christopher

I have heard from a few lenders and other sources that banks won't lend residential financing to an LLC trying to purchase a small multi-family home (2-4 units)...that you have to buy it personally, then possibly switch the title into the LLC...

Is this accurate?  Most of the podcasts/books I have come across have never mentioned this as an issue, can anyone shed some light on this topic?

Thanks!!