All Forum Posts by: Juan V Lopez

Great job, Hunter!!!! Always great to learn from our first deals – gives you a ton of momentum heading into the next one.

Oh man, what an awesome topic. I don't own a pen writing machine, but I do work with some big players in the Vegas RE market and they've consistently told me that pen-written cards consistently outperform straight direct mail.

Typical direct mail goes straight into the trash. People don't even open it, all of your copy goes to waste.

Pen-written marketing pieces have a much better chance at actually getting read. Even if it's more expensive, it's much more effective.

I'm looking forward to seeing other responses on this.

Hi there, if you still need an investor-friendly realtor in Cleveland, please DM me. I have a great friend who works there with a lot of investors. She's an incredible resource.

Hey Sam, good on you for getting started. If you don't know specifically where you want to invest right now, a good place to gather data is AirDNA. They provide in-depth stats on average rates, vacancies, listing types, etc.

Now, once you do have a location in mind, then dig into the local STR laws there. Some places are strict, others are more open, others have weird STR rules. Don't buy somewhere before looking at local STR policies.

As far as STR locations, the best cities are good vacation markets with year-long appeal, strong occupancy rates and good CoC returns. I just wrapped up a STR project in Big Bear CA that I was working on for about 4 months. It fit what I was looking for, plus my family and I will use it for ourselves. Hope this helps in your search.

I've been seeing this question a lot from new investors and wholesalers: "Is someone willing to mentor me?"

As someone who's not far removed from starting (I began in 2017) and beat around the bush for a while before I got serious about RE investing (I do this full-time now), I want to offer some advice:

It's a long shot that you'll get someone to mentor you for free that's actually worth learning from. As a beginner looking for direction, I'd recommend a few options:

1) Pay for a mentorship or training program – a lot of people don't believe in paying for a program, but I do. Exchange your money for their time. The money and time I invested was how I was able to hold myself accountable at the beginning to actually get started.

2) Find someone in your area who is specifically doing what you want to do and offer to help them any way you can (boots on ground, admin work, cold calling, etc.). Exchange your time for their knowledge. This way, you can be around the action and start to pick up the flow of things.

Ultimately, trying to learn from a successful person involves an exchange – in order to benefit from their knowledge, you either have to exchange your money or your time. If you're getting it for free (great for you if they are good and give you attention), but most of the time it's chunks and pieces of what's actually required to succeed.

Brandon Turner posted this on his IG recently from the Multi-Family Investor Network Conference and I thought it was a fantastic hit list of why RE is still the top investment vehicle, even in a bear market. This was specifically meant for MF, but I think a majority of it still applies to smaller properties (1-4 units).

• Rents are increasing
• Housing shortage
• Low interest rates (Commercial interest rates are still low compared to residential interest rates, 1-2% lower in some areas)
• Investors less trusting of Wall Street
• Real Estate is proven (Unlike Crypto, which is still setting its foundation
• Tenant-Landlord laws
• Tax incentives

When people are consolidating, when people are playing defense – that's the time to get aggressive and make deals. Anyone have anything to add to the list?

Great job on finding the deal John, keep hunting. From the numbers you mentioned, the deal sounds fantastic. Anytime you can buy into something at 60% of the as-is ARV, you're in a good spot.

• $120K purchase / $200K value

Honestly, if your as-is value is accurate, you should be jumping all over this deal. And if you can't close it yourself, wholesale it and make a fee for your hard work. Great job, man.

Unfortunately not, brother. The best way to determine market value is through sales comps or cap rates.

Assessed value vs market value are 2 vastly different things. Assessed value is a pre-determined value that a local municipality uses to calculate property taxes. The market value is the price at which the property would sell current normal market conditions.

Assessed values are predictable and stable. Market values are less predictable. For example, a market value for a $600K home 3 months ago might be $500K now. Sales comps and cap rates are the way to go.

Hey Roger, I'm assuming your sister has not closed escrow since you said the home is still under construction. Have you contacted the builder to let them know you want to assume ownership of the home? If not, I'd start there.

There's not really a way to finagle your way into owning the home since it's currently being built. Everything needs to go through the builder.

Now, if she closes it AND THEN you want to want to take it over from her, then you can get creative (seller financing, quitclaim deed, etc).

Great question Billy, hopefully you get some good responses. I'm looking into this as well and have been listening to and reading a lot of AJ Osborne's content. He has a great podcast and acquiring & building storage facilities. "Self Storage Income With AJ Osborne." He's a good resource to tap in to.