All Forum Posts by: Lou Benveniste

Quote from @Julio Gonzalez:

Welcome back to the world of real estate, Lou! It's great to see your enthusiasm for collaborating and sharing experiences with fellow investors in the area. BiggerPockets is an excellent platform for connecting with like-minded individuals.

Wishing you success and fulfillment on your real estate journey!
-Julio

Hi Julio, 
Thank you for responding.
What is Engineered Tax Service?
Was just thinking about tax planning the other day and would love to learn more.

Quote from @Shawn McCormick:

@Lou Benveniste Welcome back to REI. I am on the board of CFRI, the local chapter of the National REAI. We actually have our monthly general meeting tonight if you can make it. Otherwise, we have another 15-20 meet ups every month. I can send a free pass for your first meeting if you like.

What type(s) of investing do you do now, what types of networking do you want to do..multi-family, flips, LTR, STR.

The forums work great just with using keywords!

Best of luck, reach out if I can be of any further help.

Hi Shawn!
We've met here before.
Thanks for reaching out again.
Would love to get involved and a free pass sounds great!
Wont make tonight and Ive added the next one to my calendar.
Im juuuust about ready to list a property as a mid term rental to traveling medical pros.
This will be the first time doing this.
Have had long term rentals in the past and would like to participate in both LTR and MTR depending on the deal.

Quote from @John Karg:

Hi Lou, 

Great to meet you! You can always feel free to use me as a resource for any lending questions. 

John

Much appreciated John! Thank you!

Hi Everyone!,

I've invested in real estate in the past and now getting back into it.

I'd like to collaborate with and share my experiences with other investors in the area so if you'd like to connect please do reach out to me and if you know of a better way to find other investors in the forums, I'm all ears!

Thanks everyone and happy real estate-ing!

Welll, its been a while. Im still living in the property BUT have completed the updates and will be listing it as a mid term rental on furnished finder in a few days once I have pro photos taken!

Just wanted to elaborate on the county permitting process. Since I only needed to add 2 partition walls (no alteration of the exterior or infrastructure) I was able to apply for the permit as an owner/contractor. There were 2 permits needed, electrical and building. The process for my county was pretty straight forward, just needed to include before and (proposed) after drawings (which were hand drawn, no architect needed) showing the 2 walls and electrical outlets/switches. Hope this helps and gives you the confidence to take something like this on. I believe the work I put in is so worth the equity received.

Wow, time sure does fly. I can't believe its been this long since my last post. The 2/2/1 is so very close to being a 3/2/1. I just need to pass final inspection on the 3rd bedroom. I've gained experience with the county permitting process, which hasn't been that hard to manage at all. I've been intimidated with the permitting process for years only because it was an unknown for me. Bigger Pockets has given me the confidence to take this on AND be successful at it. The 3/2's are selling for roughly $50k more than the 2/2's so I'm optimistic I can cash-out-refi or obtain a HELOC for the forced equity. Working hard to do this before interest rates increase again!

BTW, if you plan on doing the work yourself, like I am doing, remember that you can hire a handy man for things like installing doors, drywall, electric, etc. even if you know what you are doing. I knew that I could have installed the bedroom doors myself but it would have taken me 2-3 times longer than my handy man. So instead of installing doors, I took my son to JiuJitsu class. :-)

Hi Serena,

Congratulations on all of your success! This has been a very informative conversation and I'm so glad I found it. I've been thinking of investing in the STR space in hopes of replacing my full time W-2 gig (as a network engineer) if the numbers are right. I'd really like to connect and explore the options with you if/when you have the time. In the mean time, can you recommend any sources of information I might digest, and is there anything I might be able to help you with?

UPDATE!!

I have good news and bad news.

The good news:

Closing on the 2/2/1 Today!

Bad(?) News:

It appraised for $10K lower than my purchase price. There is a silver lining in that my projected cash flow will increase since the mortgage expense is a little lower. Now the question is, how long will I need to wait to "recycle" that capital? Im going to stick with the original plan and improve it over the 6 - 12 months of living in it. Hoping it increases in value enough that I can recover some of the capital.

Any suggestions and critiques are welcomed and much appreciated!

I've been a long time lurker of their site and just now getting the confidence to consider buying off market properties. Would love to hear if anyone has bought from them and what the experience was. Thanks!