All Forum Posts by: Kyle Bambu

Welcome Garrett! I recently got started in the world of real estate myself, and I jumped right in by creating a wholesaling business. Reading books, listening to podcasts, and going to webinars are a great way to learn what real estate is all about. I'd recommend the Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller as a fantastic starter book to build your knowledge from. Once quarantines blow over, you should go on Meetup and find some groups that meet in your area. Talking to people and getting hands on experience will expedite the learning process. Books and podcasts are great supplemental material, but they cannot be a substitute for actually going out there are diving right in. Feel free to reach out if I can help you some more!

I originally used REI Skip, but as someone else had mentioned, a lot of the numbers were disconnected or not in service. I have since switched over to batch skip trace. There are definitely still a lot of numbers that don't work, but I am still reaching people often enough that I don't have an issue. I also use True People Search if I am just trying to look up the owner of an address. It honestly has been decently accurate for one off searches.

I believe your answer comes down to "intent." I have asked this question to a couple of the bigger banks when I first started looking at mortgages, and it seems like there is a loosely enforced 1 year mark between owner occupied. If getting owner occupied comes down to "intent" it gets a little tricky. You could say 'yeah I'll live there' then go live there for a day and rent it -- although that would probably fall under mortgage fraud because you never really 'intended' to stay there. 

In your example, moving cities seems like a pretty good excuse to get two owner occupied mortgages within a couple months of each other. It's probably best to consult the lender because they might have specific guidelines, but I would expect their response to be very vague otherwise investors looking to house hack would go get another owner occupied after x months.

@Ryan Swan

$200/sqft sounds like a quite a lot. I was looking at worst case around $150-160/sqft. What makes you think that it would cost this much?

I was also looking into precast construction which should compress the timeline and keep costs lower. 

Hey everyone! I'm a newbie in real estate investing. However, I started wholesaling in PA this year and have two deal closing at the end of this month. At the end of May, I'll be moving out to Phoenix for a job. Despite all the craziness happening in the world right now, I'm in the process of closing on a property very close to ASU in Tempe. I intend to house hack it for a bit, but the lot size is half an acre and it is currently zoned for up to 12 units. There is the possibility that it could be zoned for 32+ units in the near future.

I've done some research and it seems like a feasible option would be to start some new construction and sell the apartment complex after completion. Money would be a consideration, but I believe I would have the means to raise capital if the project had a sound argument for success. How much could I expect a 12 unit project to cost? I have been estimating $125/sqft. If each unit is 1100 sqft, our GBA would be 13.2k sqft, coming out to a cost of $1.65 mil. I'd suspect that is just hard costs. What ratio could I expect for hard costs / soft costs?

If I generously say 1700/mo rent, 40% expense ratio, and a cap rate of 5.5%, I could expect to sell the property for $2.9 mil. Obviously all very idealist numbers. 

Does anyone know any architects / commerical contractors that I could talk with about a project like this? I'm trying to explore my options here. I could also just potentially sell the lot, but if the return is there, it might be better to build. I'm open to suggestions and guidance. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts!

I'd like to jump in and give my two cents. Like @Mitchell Irwin I will be graduating this May and moving out to Phoenix for a full-time position. I started wholesaling at the beginning of the new year, and I have been actively searching for properties in the Phoenix area. At the beginning of March, I pulled the trigger and made an offer on a property. I still fully intend to close on the property by the first week of April even with all this craziness going on. Worst case scenario, I'll have to pay my full mortgage every month without support from renting out rooms. I've already determined that I can afford to do that. However, I believe I already have a lot of built in equity with this property and plenty of options ranging from just selling it immediately to mowing down the house on the property and building 12 units on it (20k sqft lot in the city lol). I wouldn't let this craziness affect when you jump in. As long as you buy right, you are already setting yourself up for higher chances of success. This should be over in a couple months and then we'll be back to business like usual.

The Lehigh Valley is a pretty hot market. I live here and have watched all the construction popping up all over. The casino being built in Bethlehem probably helped a lot with all of the growth. I recently started wholesaling in the area and will have two deals completed by the end of the month. There are definitely still properties out there to buy at good prices if you find the right seller. 

In a double close, you are going to have to pay closing costs twice so you end up making less. Whatever you make from a double close is also short-term capital gains so you are going to pay a lot more in taxes. The good side is that you won't have to deal with a seller seeing how much you are making. In an assignment, after you assign the contract you really aren't part of the deal anymore. The seller and buyer need to close. Your job would be done, and you'd collect your fee. I just started wholesaling and assigned two contracts which are closing at the end of this month.

Hey I was on spring break two weeks ago when there weren't this many cases. I'm sure students going all over creation and flying in and out of NY didn't help, but there were a lot more than just spring breakers flying the past two weeks. At this point, I'd expect it to get much worse before it gets better. Shutting down whole cities should help but if there's a two week period before people experience symptoms then we really shouldn't expect to see any decline, if any, for at least another week...

Your numbers look pretty solid. You could even get a 3% down conventional loan rather than a FHA so you aren't paying PMI for the lifetime of the loan. There are also a lot of first time homebuyer assistance programs out there that can help get you grant money to reduce the closing costs or downpayment that you need