All Forum Posts by: Jimmy Suszynski

@Pete Perez

Are you still occupying one of the units and is the other already rented?

The reason I ask is because if you rehab the unit you’re living in and continue living there then you’re not getting much return. If you need to rehab the other in order to rent it out, then I’d say do that since a tenant will cover (hopefully) most of your living expenses which helps a lot when you go to get financing for another investment property or primary residence.

If I were you, I would determine what cash flow you can expect post rehab and refi and make sure it fits into your goals. You don’t want to go through all the headaches and lose money every month. Secondly, house-hacking a duplex is a really good situation to be in to supercharge your savings. I’m doing it myself and am only vacating to rent my unit to traveling nurses and take on a live-in flip. House hacking let me save enough buy a straight rental and complete a flip—both are helping me furnish my place and close on a live-in flip.

The lower the cost of living the better when you're first starting out. DTI is a very big factor when applying for financing of any kind.

@Davis Stoner

I did this on my first BRRRR. I used a personal loan with terrible interest for the purchase and two 0%-for-18-month credit cards for the rehab.

I factored the principal and interest payments into my overall numbers on the deal and it worked

When I refinanced 6-mos. later, I paid it all back and am now in the deal for less than $1,000 and bring in cashflow (NET) of ~$180/month.

I would make sure you will be able to recover that 50-75k following renovations. If you got the place for a great deal you should be fine. Worst-case, your tenants pay your credit card bill(s) until you are able to refinance or otherwise.

Thanks Ethan!

Yeah I've learned from my own experience and heard from numerous folks since posting this that REI Skip isn't the highest quality. Lots of dead numbers or wrong numbers and very few do I actually ring through to.

I am out of the country but found an off-market property I’d like to either wholesale or clean up and sell to another investor.

I edited my purchase and sale agreement and need to send it to the seller for signature.

Should I be using Hellosign or Docusign for this? I’ve never done anything off-market yet and my only frame of reference is signing papers for my realtor through their software of choice.

A lot of the advice I get from local investors is focused on buying properties in D (maybe C) neighborhoods using self-directed IRA funds of other investors because they're able to pick them up for cheap and not have to worry about institutional financing of any kind.

Their leases are miles long, they always have horror stories and nearly every time a unit turns over it takes a day to cleanout. 

I've brought that up when they give me advice on my question of how to acquire rentals without saving 20% each time and they get upset when I say I don't want the type and class of properties they have. To each their own, of course.

I want to build a portfolio of BRRRR properties that are in working-class neighborhoods. My goal is 10 single-family homes, each with a garage, 3 bedrooms & 1-2 bathrooms, in decent school districts. There are a few neighborhoods in my market that fit perfectly into this model but I am having a hard time getting money for the initial purchase since they are <$100,000. I am actually in the parking lot at the bank waiting to close on the cash-out refinance of my first BRRRR. I will be at 77% of the ARV and cash-flow ~$220 per month after accounting for repairs, maintenance, and CAP EX. I replaced all of the mechanicals in that property so CAP EX and repairs should be minimal for the time being. Hopefully, this strategy will help insulate me from downturns since I'll have at least 20% equity in each property.

The short answer is, I've seen my uncle (textbook slum lord) and other investors who took the quantity over quality approach and I want no part of that. I want BRRRR working-class rentals that give me a higher-quality tenant pool and less overall headaches.

Do you have any special type of umbrella policy? I read a lot of posts by attorneys saying LLCs are 100% necessary in every case, but then I spoke with a local real estate/business attorney that said it's not really necessary if you have good insurance.

Overall, I enjoy the BRRRR model--I like completing rehabs more than any other part of the process and don't mind the idea of having properties brought current when I place tenants. Fewer headaches not having. to deal with shotty repairs and bandaids from previous owners.

@John Morgan

Do you have any concerns with having properties in your personal name rather than under an LLC?

I found a local portfolio lender that is asset-based but only for properties under personal name. They don't require 6 month seasoning (since they're not Fannie/Freddie loans) which is HUGE for the BRRRR strategy in the cash flow market I'm building my portfolio in.

Hello everyone!

I recently found a local portfolio lender that fits perfectly into the types of BRRRR properties I want to acquire. They are cheaper (<$100k), single-story, SFHs built in the 50's/60's. They are cash-flow properties. Since I am trying to transition to a full-time investor, these low-maintenance properties in a few select neighborhoods will help me get there sooner.

I am going through the cash-out refinance process now for my first BRRRR. I bought it as a foreclosure, updated all the plumbing, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new hot water, new furnace/AC - Should be relatively low-maintenance. I will pull out $5,000 more than I put in and cash-flow $150/month ($260 while I am self-managing). The loan is amortized over 30 years with no balloon. I want to do more of these.

The caveat is: this financing option is only available on properties in my personal name. I wanted to begin putting everything into my LLC, however, if I were to purchase good umbrella insurance for these rentals, will that be enough? I know some say that putting property in your names is the "old school way" and I don't want to shoot myself in the foot longterm. The opportunity is there for me over the next 2 years to add 10+ of these properties as fast as I can find them, rehab them and get them rented up. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that when significant renovations are completed that I won't need to wait out the 6-month seasoning since they're a portfolio lender; they don't have the 5-mortgage limit either).

I am preparing to complete a cash-out refi on a BRRRR property. It *should* be enough to get every penny back (not accounting for my own sweat and tears, unfortunately). A good portion of those pennies came from a personal loan I took out to buy the foreclosure with "cash".

I am getting ready to close on a fix and flip property. I have enough to buy it with cash but planned to take hard money up for the rehab funds.

After doing some math, it would be cheaper to use the money owed on the personal loan to do the rehab with than it would be to borrow from a hard money lender. When the refinance goes through, do banks typically pay off the associated debt or do they cut you a check and let you allocate it as needed? I have the personal loan and a balance on a 0% credit card to payoff with the refi proceeds.

The refinance is set to go through at the end of January and I have enough cash/credit between myself and my partner to get the rehab started and carry us well into February without issue.

Thank you for the tips, @Maurice Smith! I subscribed to Propstream recently because of its potential but have nowhere near tapped into it. My initial plan is to spend time learning how to find deals, as I get better at it, I'd like to buy the ones I can to flip or hold as a rental depending on what makes the most sense for that particular property and wholesale the ones that don't fit my investing model and goals.

I jumped on the FB page as well.

I am also investing in and around Pittsburgh @Jesse Krall. Request to connect sent!