All Forum Posts by: Kevin Callahan

I am in the hunt for some wisdom / experience.  I have the potential to put together a new construction 30 unit apartment complex deal in a great location.  However I am a little bit over my tips.  If there is anyone in the Portland area who has experience with new construction of apartment buildings of this size, and would be willing to give up a little bit of their time I would love to buy you lunch / beer!  

@Shane Daugherty 

Thinking about going through Train Agents Online as well. How was the program? What was the online experience like?

I really appreciate all of your input! Helps out a ton just getting other experienced peoples thoughts / opinions on something.

UPDATE ON STATUS:

We went pretty fare down the path of doing an extended closing just to run into the road block of him having a VA loan, that he hadn't told us about until the very last minute. Which then killed that avenue, because he needed to close on his current mortgage to reset hi VA status and reapply it to his new mortgage.

We then went back to the idea of purchasing it and having him sign a rental agreement for 4 months at market rents (I know, everyone advises against that....).  But after the weekend of him, his wife, and I assume a friend of theirs who is an agent, he decided that he is going to do the rehab himself while living there and list it.

So the deal is dead.  Kind of a bummer, but still learned a fair amount.  And Honestly probably dodged a bullet by not having to deal with the hassle of buying and renting back.

@Johnny Vong,  I would estimate it to be a pretty quick rehab timeline, month tops.  The town is a really family driven / good schools / starter home kind of place, do you think there will be any downside to listing it after the school year has started??

@Steve Moody It is one of my good friends father-in-laws, so would be a really bad spot to be in to have to evict them. Are you thinking that if their deal for the new place falls through and they end up not getting motivated to move I am sitting on it??  What if I was charging them market rent?  

@Jay Hinrichs @JR Hinds @Brandon Turner @Jeff Wallenius

Hey all,  I have a potential deal that I have been working on and I could use some advice!

(apologies for how long and confusing this explanation will be... its sort of a complex situation!)

So I had an off market deal brought to me and my partner, a track home in a really hot small commuter town just outside of Portland OR. 2004 built, all the big stuff is still in great shape, the kids just destroyed the paint and carpets with markers and whatever else kids do!! (not a parent yet myself, so apparently I am in for quite the surprise some day!). The ARV will be around $290,000 being very conservative, can get the house for $235,000. I actually know this guy, so there is a little bit more of a friendly conversation around this deal. He and his family are moving to a new home on some land outside of town and don't want to deal with the headache of trying to bring their home up to standard to sell on the market.

Here is the hard part!  He wont be ready to move out for 12-16 weeks.  So the crossroad I am at is whether to buy the house from him now, and rent it back to him for the time being, or do I put the home under contract with a 18 week closing date?   Also he has all the money needed for the next deal but would like a little bit of this deal in case something comes up.

Under Contract for 18 Weeks:

Pros-

Delaying the date we have to cough up the money would really help, as my partner has most of the cash we typically use to buy flips tied up in a rental home that he will re-fi here in the next month or so, making it so we don't need to try to come up with any creative financing work around for this deal but can just pay cash.

Cons-

Waiting so long to get the house could mean missing the good part of the selling season and we could get substantially less for it, so committing to it and having to wait for so long seems sort of risky / foolish??

Buy It and Rent It Back:

Pros-

We lock in a really good deal, get to help out him and his family, make a couple hundred bucks for having to wait before we flip.

Cons-

We don't have the cash available, so we have to really push to get some other financing (hardmoney, bank loan, private money loan, or ???).

I am really stuck here.  Not sure if there is a clear answer right in front of me and I just cant see it, or if I should just chalk this deal up to a lose and walk away from it.  Any advice, opinions, stories of past deals would really be appreciated!

Thanks so much,

Kevin Callahan

Thanks for the replies!  I have put this on a slight hold for the time being (planning our wedding is taking up most of my free time now.  I have been asking around to try and get a feel on who owns some of the properties I would really like, and if they are local people, but so far no real luck.

Hey Guys,  names Kevin.  I am a new investor looking to get my first deal.  I live, was born and raised, in a small town called Scappoose outside of Portland OR.  Scappoose is a beautiful small town that is about 15K people, with a majority of people being commuters into Portland.  Scappoose a few years ago was undiscovered, but in the last few years has blown up!  Houses are going for $20-30K over list price, and listings (at least the decent ones) aren't available for more then a few weeks.  There are developments of 100+ units being built and new businesses moving in.

I would really like to acquire a live in multi-family property, but as you can guess, there are none available on the market, and the few that pop up and bought buy cash buyers with a much stronger hand then a newby.  I was able to get my hands on a list of every multi-family property in the area.  I would like to reach out to these property owners and see if I can generate a deal, but Im not 100% sure how I should go about it.

My first thought was direct mail (the list I have has mailing addresses for the owners as well the property).  I thought that I might have a good chance catching their interest with a handwritten letter and the fact that I am a local, born and raised in this town, that I am young and starting out, that we could work out a deal without them having to go through the hassle of listing the property.  Now, I'm not sure if this approach is a good one, or if it would be better to approach them with a more professional, typed letter.

I'm also very interested / open to any input or advice you have!