All Forum Posts by: Judy Walsh

Interested in working with wholesalers in first time homebuyer markets particularly.  Cranston, Warren, open to others.  Also South Shore MA.

Message me if you're in that market, or have suggestions, thank you!

@Dave Foster

Thank you

@Nathan Gesner

Thank you.

This is helpful. Starting to investigate multi unit with cash flow optimization as primary goal.

I own a single family rental in RI, which cash flows and is rented to local college students Sept-May and I rent out via Airbnb weekly in the summer.  

Equity - approx $250K conservatively.  

I am likely inclined to keep it and find/generate funds for down payment on apt as next goal, and I am starting to educate myself in this area, but I was curious about whether 1031 is an option.  Thanks in advance for any insights!

The market I invest in is a beach community near a university, so the rentals range anywhere from $500-700 per bedroom during the school year and weekly during the summer.  

I'm familiar with the market, as I used to live there.  My first property went incredibly well.  I bought it at the right price.  No emotion, I didn't even particularly love the house but the #s worked and I could add a bedroom cheaply.  I established my walk away purchase price # and I walked away once that was rejected.  Two months later, the seller came back and I got the deal at my #.  Then, my second property......was a totally different story.

Lesson 1: Don't scale too fast.

OK, going from one property to two may not be impressive scaling, but I got a false sense of security from how well property #1 went.  I bought it right, renovated cheaply adding a bedroom and had it rented before I made a mortgage payment.

The 1st mistake: I went to view the second property before I was really ready to be looking.  I needed to build up more reserves.  I was overconfident and enthusiastic and felt like I could just will this thing to work.  I felt unstoppable.  So, I looked.  What's the harm, right?

Mistake #2:  I got emotionally invested in property #2.  I pictured it as a second home, vacation home, eventual retirement spot - fell in love with the location.  This clouded my thinking.  If I didn't love the location, I may not have bought it based on the numbers.  NUMBERS DON'T LIE, but emotions do.

Mistake #3: I talked myself into making the numbers work, so I bought it a little higher than I wanted to, but the #s still worked as long as I could get through the first year without having to repair anything huge.  THAT is a big and dangerous assumption.  The water heater went, the stove failed, the washer/dryer broke, a root grew into the sewer line and backed up pressure so that the cap blew off the sewer pipe in the crawl space, so we were flushing everything into the crawlspace......expensive clean up!  Oh, then the furnace went, mid winter.  Can't make this stuff up. 

Next time:  

Lesson 1: Run the #s including updating the mechanicals and appliances and have at least a six month reserve.  Sounds so basic, and it is.  

To be fair, I didn't see the potential for the root issue coming, but now I know that the weeping willow roots cause havoc frequently in this area so I'd probably have someone do an exploratory roto rooter or something next time!

Lesson 2: Always set a "walk away" offer # before I begin discussions and be ready to really walk away.  

Lesson 3:  NO EMOTIONS.

Would love to talk with you about this if this story fits what you're looking for.

Judy

If it cash flows with the new mortgage payment and you get to do another deal I almost wouldn’t care what the rate was. Just my two cents.

Three takeaways.....

1) Don't listen to people who don't understand what you're trying to do and therefore are trying to talk you out of it - we've all been there and this was a great reminder from Josh - "You know what to do".  You do.  Trust it.

2) Be SPECIFIC with contractor bids - itemized line items with timelines, consequences (financial - great idea!) for not meeting timelines

3) You know SOMEONE who has money to lend you.  Talk to them.  Even if it's scary.  And it might mean the #s work in another market, not yours.  Do the homework.  Figure out what you need to know and learn it.  Go to the market, meet the team members, figure out who you trust and work with them......and DECIDE to make it happen.  Set a deadline........ use the BP journal to keep you on track.  OK - maybe this last one was five more items but they all connect!!!  if you're new - don't wait for perfect, just take ACTION (educated action, do the math......but action!)

Thank you, BiggerPockets, for hosting this event!

Lots of great ideas on this thread.  I met lots of great people (in spite of VERY poorly timed laryngitis!) and would have loved to stay one more night as well.  

Just a couple of other suggestions to add (hopefully I'm not duplicating):

- Mark sessions as Novice/Intermediate/Advanced

- Clarify whether sessions are being video recorded for later posting on BP site (or via an attendee link), or if/when slides will be available.  Many speakers offered an email address to obtain slides at the end of the talk - thank you for that!  Some consistency might help people choose in advance which session they will attend when two concurrent ones are interesting.  Less pressure if you know you'll get the info another way for the ones you miss.

- Ask people to preregister for topics or rank first and second choice a couple of weeks ahead of time in order to better estimate room sizes needed.  

- Some conferences offer an overflow area where monitors are up showing the different talks from the smaller rooms.  They sometimes provide headsets so that it's still quiet in those areas.

- Kudos and thanks to Matt Faircloth who took several of us outside for an impromptu session on raising capital when Liz's session's popularity exceeded the room size! 

- Survey the group re: what topics they'd like for next year.  Also, I feel like we should prepare panel audience questions ahead of time as attendees.

- Agree with booking it ASAP, and somewhere fun where most can fly with minimal connections.

- Food and/or a cocktail hour, or raffle number reading in the vendor area has worked at other conferences I've attended. 

- The offsite welcome reception - if location/transportation were clarified that would have been helpful.  Lots of individual ubers.  The Uber code for the Jason Aldean's party was appreciated.  A shuttle would be nice if available/affordable at future venues.  

The BP team was organized and accommodating, welcoming, friendly and efficient.  You clearly put some serious effort into this event and it is much appreciated!  

Thanks again for all that you do which enables us do what WE do, and reach new levels of success by helping each other out.  The thing that unifies us is that we are willing to do the big scary things in order to free ourselves and our time up to live better.  That is pretty awesome, if you ask me.  Your mission changes lives.  

See you all next year, and on the forums until then!

@Matt Rutter

Were you able to locate a document? I’m in the process of doing something similar with a short time frame - 3 years with likelihood of early payment after refi

Curious if you located a simple template. Seems most on the blog advise an attorney which makes sense too.

Analyzing a property to purchase, renovate and rent.  

If I am initially looking to fund with private $, then refinance to a traditional mortgage once improvements are made, how should I enter this into the BP calculator to have an idea of NOI/cash flow?

With the initial (private $) or eventual mortgage loan terms?