All Forum Posts by: Kyle Johnson

Hi all,

I am an out of state investor with a property just East of Little Rock, Arkansas (Carlisle, AK). I am searching for a decent property manager in the area who is interested in assisting with some property work and future management. All points of contact in the Little Rock area are saying its outside of their area of operations. The few I have talked to in the Stuttgart, AK area have either had extremally poor customer service or just been unresponsive. If anyone is interested or knows a decent PM in the area I would greatly appreciate the connection!

Respectfully,

Kyle Johnson

Benjamin,

Thanks for the feedback. I greatly appreciate it. House hacking/live in flips are great for military families too. The Army pays my mortgage. I live in them rehab them myself. My plan originally was to always buy and hold for 5-7 years as i move through out my career but the crazy thing is the markets have always BOOMED as we approached moving time. it made more sense to me to cash out at those time than to hold the properties long-term with my living situation changing every 3-4 years. 

With the career change however I'm loosing that advantage, and additionally the stable income. we have a very nice safety blanket but i would prefer to make that money start working for me while I'm still in, creating additional assets that will provide a stable enough income to continue to grow my investment portfolio. I maintain the advantage of doing all the contracting myself as a capable rehab guy. but that wont put food on the table as we flip these properties into rentals. I'm concerned i would spend off my savings and investment funds before we go into the stable green.

I definitely feel like multi-family is where i want to be, ideally doing a BRRRR deal to expedite the investment opportunity.... getting started, and where seems to be the hard part, having never done a BRRRR. Currently reading David's book on it now though.

Good afternoon BiggerPockets community. I am a transitioning Army Officer who has been moderately successful in real estate investing doing live in flips between military destinations. As I transfer out of the military I would like to move full time into real estate investing. In doing so educating myself and looking for advice is essential for success. My "competitive" advantage to this point is the ability to do 95% of all rehab and construction work on the deals I have gotten involved in. I have done 3 deals so far, purchasing a homes comfortable enough to live in using VA loans with on average 10-15k of equity on the date of purchase due to finding opportunities in the gray area. Buying single family homes that are in too rough of condition for the none investor, but also not enough damage to do quick flips for a full time house flipper. all three deals have provided around $20-25k in returns after all expenses.

My question is as experienced investors if you were to start all over what lessons learned do you wish you knew then that you know now? Additionally, below are a few questions i would love to hear about:

1. What is your investment strategy? (Multi-family, Air B&B, Single-Family, etc.)

2. How did you get started? what do you recommend to someone getting started in your strategy?

3. What would you do different, or not again?

4. What was the one thing that really made you successful that you could duplicate regularly?

5. Did you work while you got started or go straight into full time investing? If you maintained a day job how did you scale/grow to transition to full time real estate investing?

Thank you to all that take the time to invest in my education and to those who can learn from this post. Have a great day!

Same, just purchased the ultimate edition of the BURRR book. Seriously disappointed that we purchase a product and can access it. From the looks of things this has been going on for 3 years, Please provide an update on how we can use the audio version of the books as well. or at least refund people a portion of their purchases.

Computer: PC with iTunes downloaded, Phone: iPhone 13 Pro

Respectfully,

Kyle

@David Pere thanks for the response. I would love to be in some type of multifamily property as a house hack but unfortunately I have a family of five with lots of tools and woodworking equipment for my other big hobby lol. Finding a duplex or more just doesn't fit my family constraints.

I have found a decent amount of foreclosures, MLS properties, and even a few off market but the forclosures that are living flips all go fo way over asking price. I bid 155 on a VA forclosure with an asking price of 149 and I was one of 32 bids. Out bod by over 20k. The winner still got a decent home just not a property that made sense as an investor. The off market deal fell through... I could go back with more to offer but that's depending on how I calculate my desired profit.

I'll look I to the VA rehab loan though as well. It could be a tool to add to my belt once/if it becomes available again. Thanks for the input.

Another way to ask the question is when you offering your final offer price how to you ensure your making the profit #? The 70% rule is simply not obtainable for live in flips in my areas. Most homes are not on the market in military areas more than 2 weeks at the moment. How do i find a deal that will be worth my while and not wind up homeless or paying pointless rent lol? Any and all advice is welcome, new investor with only one flip under my belt (we did well in that one).

Hey BP Community trying to make sure I'm calculating a live in flip and max offer price appropriately. Long story short I'm military using VA loans and will be doing a living flip, rehabbing properties slightly below MV or at MV with higher ARVs while living in them for 2-3 years doing the rehabs myself. Somewhat of a house hack I guess.. Doing this until I can transition into actual buy and hold duplex/multi-families with the traditional 20-25% down. Building Capital the slow way.

My question when trying to hit a desired profit number, do I calculate it before the equity I accumulate? Meaning if living in the property for two years I would gain the equity over the two years: Loan amount - P&I(24 payments) + pay off amount = equity.

The BP calculator does not account for this so the difference in my profit margins vary greatly. If I'm shooting for 25K profit based off the BP Calculator my asking price is $XXX,XXX but once I run those numbers again with the equity I have gained through living in the home and paying down the mortgage the profit jumps significantly from the profit desired on the BP Calculator. I am calculating $0 holding cost because I'm living in the property as we rehab it.

Thanks for the feedback I'm trying to appropriately calculate my profit and offer price; the two numbers are clouding my judgement and making it very difficult to find a home that make sense in a competitive sellers market. Below is a deal I have run numbers on and the asking price is well below what the property sold for, but that offer got me the desired profit BEFORE adding in the equity I built paying down the loan. In other words the fix and flip calculator is calculating capital gains not overall profit (~$43,900 left over after all expenses at the end of 2 years). I'm losing almost every offer because I'm either calculating this wrong or I'm expecting too much on the profit margins for my family needs while investing in a living flip.

View report

*This link comes directly from our calculators, based on information input by the member who posted.

Lots of great information here. I'm very new to the RE Investing world too. I think as long as you use your network and the thousands of investors here willing to help its really fairly safe. Run conservative yet accurate numbers, seek outside perspective and dont be afraid to act. If something safely cash flows and the market turns your flip just became a hold property and build equity through someone paying down your mortgage. I have a LOT to learn but I think sometimes us newbies over analysis and panic at all the things that could go wrong. Look at the best case scenario, and the worst, then realize you will more than likely always come out somewhere in the middle. Good luck! looking forward to others perspectives on the matter.

@Dave Foster, thanks Dave. I'm leaning that way as well. I do have a family who is interested in rent to own as well which sounds like a great deal as well but most of what I read is the renter almost never buys at the end of the lease. Potentially selling now ends up being our best bet anyway. The market could do crazy things once this whole COVID situation is resolved. Making 10-40k on a property we have owned less than a year would be a great ROI.

Josh thanks for the feed back. to answer some of your questions. I am interested in long term passive income. My goal is to accumulate property over the next 11 years while I'm in the Army, so that when I retire I can actually retire and make no less than at the end of my career. From their I want to focus on investing and enjoying life. My plan was to accumulate properties as I move from instillation to  instillation as the Army moves me. Renting is normally very easy in military areas in my experience, the cash flow however is normally lower. So far all my plan is to live in while I'm stationed at the base and then rent once we leave for the next assignment. After a few years and the equity builds I will likely sell the property and use the capital gains to invest in other properties closer to where we plan to retire in order to manage the properties myself. Not wanting to try and manage properties all of the US this early in my "investing career". 

If we sell now we potentially make $10k-$40k after all expenses. If we rent and manage the property ourselves which I feel pretty comfortable with, We will cash flow $55-$144 after total expenses depending on renting price. 

If we sell, I would love to use the capital gains and a 1031 to used on our next home but as I understand it you cant use it for a live in home it has to be an actual investment property. So we would likely pay the taxes and use the left over profit to place a down payment on the next property anyway.

My biggest challenge is we are not in a financial position to simply purchase an investment property, we need to live in and then turn the property into an investment once we move from one location to the next. We are financially stable with plenty of reserves in the case of an emergency but not in a position to do a 10-20% down payment on a $150K+ investment property. I'm also not in a position to invest in a property that needs a lot of time and money to rent it out with my profession.... Long hours, lots of weekend training.

I might have taken myself out of the investment game before i started lol.... thanks again, always appreciate the knowledge and advice!