All Forum Posts by: Julian Sibley

@Wendy Carpenter I send everyone to First Financial NW Bank for commercial products. They have some pretty unique commercial and portfolio products. If you are looking to meet with other commercial lenders PM me for his info, and you can reach out to him for some of their guidelines.

@Brendan Johnson Welcome to BP! There's a local meetup in Marysville, WA on the 27th of NOV. Starts @ 7:00 PM at the Bob's burgers. If that is too far of a drive for you then @Robert Freeborn could probably get you connected with some people further North. I believe they have a meetup in the Mt. Vernon/Skagit area.

If you are interested in short term rentals & Vacation rentals @Eric Kouvolo would be another good local investor for you to meet with. Meeting other locals will be the best way for you to see what kind of deals they are looking for/finding in the area.

Good luck investing, hope to see you around!

@Jason R. Welcome to BP! My Wife and I live in Everett, but both grew up in Snohomish. We hope to move back there in the next month or two if things work out. Always good to see other local investors, there's a monthly meetup in Marysville, WA at the Bob's burgers & brew. Next one is 11/27/17 @ 7:00PM - would be a good opportunity for you to meet some people in the area.

Your Goals:

-Educate: The BP Forums are great, I'm not sure where you RN at but if you haven't already checked out the BP podcasts they are perfect for converting your commute to/from work into a productive time. They also frequently ask the guests on the podcast what their favorite real estate and non-real estate related books are, which will help add some depth to your recommended reading list.

-Obtain second property: You should be able to easily qualify for a loan depending on down payment requirements (since you have only the mortgage payment, and I'm assuming you claim the rent from your ADU on your taxes). Have you looked into a HELOC on your primary to help get a downpayment for your second property? Your main benefit to living in the multi-unit when you purchase it would be a lower down payment, but would you then rent out your Snohomish house? If you and your wife are truly open to sharing walls with your tenants then house-hacking a multi-unit is always a great option.

-Expand properties to buy and hold: Are you investing in-state, out of state? You can receive better returns if you are willing to look outside of King and Snohomish Counties and outside of Washington. You will want to start building a team in the area that you plan to invest, once you have financing figured out you can essentially start to BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat).

Challenges:

-Start networking with local investors and you'll learn about what they're doing/how they are finding deals. Like previously mentioned a joint-venture would be a good idea, you have some money saved up that you could bring to the table and would help you get into a property sooner (although not 100% owner). You could consider looking into flipping to raise capital to be able to buy and hold? Not sure what your ideal strategy/long-term plan is. I disagree with the sell your Snohomish property idea, but like I said earlier I grew up there so I'm biased. You could sell your place in Snohomish and get something nice in Spokane. Your dollar will go much further on the East side of the Cascades.

Good Luck investing!

-Julian

@Neal Royal There is a meetup in Marysville, WA at the Bob's burgers and brew @ 7:00pm. 4th Monday of every month, next one is November 27th.

It's hosted by the Cascadia Investors Alliance, you can look up their events on meetup.com

I'm of no help to you in that area, but isn't Aberdeen/Montesano the cities that @Brandon Turner always talks about in Grays Harbor county?

I did my best to get some keyword alerts in my post, someone else should be able to point you in a good direction. Good luck! 

@Ryan Taylor Welcome to BP! Get a profile photo! haha slightly joking, but it will help when you start networking. My wife and I graduated from WWU, Bellingham is a great place to be. If you want to work in sales I would still get your RE license, but if your focus is property management, or development I don't see the immediate benefit from having your license. That being said, I don't have my RE license so I might be biased.

I don't know of many events up there, but popular places to find networking opportunities are here on BP (Network tab up top, then click events). Or I've found several on meetup.com. @Robert Freeborn could probably get you plugged in with some locals up there, they're also hosting a networking event in Mt. Vernon on the 21st @ 6pm??, it's a bit of a drive but you would meet some great people. If you're open to driving there will also be a networking event on Monday 9/25 @ 7PM at the Marysville Bob's Burgers.

Figure out what your good at, and find someone in your area who needs help with whatever it is you're good at. Or if you're lucky enough to see their process and think you can do it better, show them how. If people ask let them know you're new to real estate, but focus on seeing what their problems are or where they are having bottlenecks in their process and offer to help them do the things they dislike or struggle at. If you can provide value you're more likely to find a position where you can gain experience, as opposed to seeking a mentor to train you, but that's just my $0.02.

Keep searching through the forums for info, and listening to the BiggerPockets podcast in the meantime, and if you have any questions ask! Another thing to keep in mind, if you want to get in real estate after school you should focus on getting a W2 job (hourly or salary position). It will help you qualify for conventional financing much faster, since you won't have to wait 2 years to establish a work history of receiving commission pay.

@Rob Terpilowski Starting with the business, how is 2017 going? If 2015 was worse and 2016 got better is 2017 better than 2016? If you can provide your current P&L some lenders will be able to get an exception and average your P&L in with 2015/2016 to decrease the business loss.

If it is just a small amount of income you need, you could always get a rent schedule with your appraisal. That way you can use 75% of the fair market rent on your units, it will cost you a little more than a standard appraisal but will help improve your DTI ratio. If you need 100% of the rents, most guidelines won't let us use the full income on new properties until you have a 1yr lease signed and they have paid their first months rent to you.

Last resort, any family or business partners that will co-sign for you?

@Robert Freeborn @Julie Marquez I appreciate the mentions, and will keep an eye out for your future Mt. Vernon meetings, unfortunately the 21st is not a good day for me. I plan on attending the Cascadia North End meeting on Monday the 25th at Marysville Bob's burgers @ 7 (If they are still hosting the North end events) so hopefully I will see all of you there!

@Kelsy Soderlund is the Cascadia North End meeting going to be at Bob's burgers again in Marysville, WA on September 25th? 7pm?? Was unable to attend the last one but hoping to make it out this month!

@Ricardo Lunk Welcome to BP and thank you for your service!

It looks like you want long term buy and hold in the Midwest so I am going to assume that your long term strategy/goal is cashflow, but we need to know if you plan to focus on SFR's, multi-units, commercial, etc. Once you have your end-goal in mind it is much easier to place the plan/steps needed to get there. I am no help to you on the Midwest part, but if you find a good partner over there who can be your boots on the ground you should be in a great position.

Start attending local networking events to build out a team in the area, or if you solely want to invest in the Midwest start meeting people locally who invest in the midwest and try to have them connect you with people they trust. The forums are a great place to search through for answers and the BP podcasts are as well.

For your first couple deals you could use conventional financing, seems like you have a good W2 job at $100k a year which is a plus and could always have your fiance co-sign to use her income as well. You also have access to VA which is a great program, just make sure you always compare it to conventional financing, assuming you have good credit. Using VA for subsequent use can sometimes be more costly than what you would pay going conventional.

You should start looking up "house hacking" as well as "BRRRR" (Buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat.) My wife refuses to share walls with tenants so house hacking is not an option for me, your fiance might not care, either way you should know what they are/how it could benefit you.

My $0.02 on your strategy moving forward:

• Limit your debts, and your fiance's for that matter. We are a community property state, which means her debt is your debt ;) or atleast, it will be in the near future.
• AT LEAST 25% savings annually; Pay yourself first through a forced savings plan. Once your paycheck is deposited put 25% directly into your savings or an account that DOES NOT have a debit card. This way you force yourself to save at least 25% and in order to touch your savings you have to transfer it back to an account that has a debit card linked to it. Then at the end of the month transfer whatever remaining balance you are comfortable with to your savings. Seems like you're already great at budgeting/saving if you have $20k in there, so if you already treat your 25% savings as a "bill" ignore this piece.
• Current residence, keep it until you are done with school. If you are comfortable with the mortgage after your housing allowance is over I would stay there, since I assume it is close to your work. Otherwise you could look into moving into a place with a lower mortgage payment (assuming you can cash flow on your current residence). If you truly want to sell it you can after 2 years (Oct. 2018) to avoid capital gains and free up capital to invest out of state.
• Start networking/building out your team. You will meet plenty of people who flip, own turn-key rentals, and manage their own rentals. Keep in mind people are much more open to working with "partners" rather than a "mentee". Find something of value you can provide them, if you can't find anything ask them what they hate doing and offer to do it for free, in exchange for working with them on a deal/seeing their process start to finish.
• Last option is to just jump in, lots of research is great but sometimes the best lessons are learned from simply going through the process. Everyone on the forums is extremely helpful should you have any questions, ask!