All Forum Posts by: Kris Mann

@Josi Colley, I use Fulton Bank. I know they lend in VA as well.

@Keith C. - looks like this is county specific. Some counties around me are continuing to do auctions, while other have been on hold. I am presuming they are auctioning off pre-covid inventory. 

@Nico - Will makes some very good points. Personally, I only managed to buy 3 out of maybe 30 serious attempts I made to buy at auctions. A lot of times, the banks seem to go in a loop, with multiple re-auctions. So I don't treat auctions as a reliable source of deals. If it happens, it happens, but I don't base my gameplan on snagging a property at an auctions.

One thing that I noticed with some auction houses. They list the property on the MLS with a price that is close to the reserve price, which will help you decide if you even want to pursue it to begin with.

NP, thanks for checking @Jean H.

@Satyam Mistry - I crossed 20 not too long ago, but here is my 2 cents on scaling...

1. I try to stay focused on what is working for me. It is easy to get distracted and run in different directions. You have to look beyond the hype, but you knew that already ;)

2. I try to put processes in place, and follow them, rather than doing one-off exceptions. It is hard to scale otherwise. 

@Heather Schmidtknecht, do you know what type of work visa it is? Seasonal, H1B, L1? You should definitely ask for the validity period of their current visa; visa renewals are not guaranteed these days. 

I refinanced 2 properties in early April for 3.66% / LLC / no points / 5-yr balloon / 25-yr amortization.

I am closing on 3 more tomorrow for 3.46% / LLC / no points / 5-yr balloon / 25-yr amortization.

@Jean H., do you know if your bank lends outside FL? While my bank has favorable interest rates, they will not do anything other than 5-yr balloon. 

The seasoning period also depends on the bank, the type of loan (commercial vs personal) and your relationship with the bank. I buy cash and refinance once I have a tenant in place. The local bank that I work with doesn't require seasoning; in fact they said they are willing to lend before I place a tenant in there, though I haven't tried that yet.

I use professional photos for flips, and phone pics for rentals. I used to fret about photo quality when I first started renting, but realized over time that just a handful of decent phone pics are enough to bring prospective tenants thru the door (I am speaking for the DC metro area, where there is a huge rental housing shortage). My first picture is the kitchen (because kitchens are usually the best feature of our properties), second pic is the front of the house, and the third pic always lists the open house timings. This helps us avoid a ton of calls that ask us when they can view the property (though we include the open house timings in the listing description and Zillow settings). Here is the picture:

You and the seller decide #1. 

#2 is decided for you and is publicly available. Look in the tax history on Zillow, or your state's real property website. It doesn't change with the purchase price.

#3 might vary a little bit, but you should stick to the initial number just to be safe. 

@Steve Rich, here is a real example from one of my properties that I have readily available. Given the competition in the DC metro area, I am not able to buy low enough where I can pull all my money out during refinance as @Nick C. suggested. Regardless, this example shows the slow wealth building nature of BRRRR that everyone else referred to; I can either make $18k now, or take home $220k in 10 years. This analysis assumes fairly high operating costs, and doesn't even consider rental increases and savings from depreciation. So it is a fairly conservative estimate.