All Forum Posts by: Luciano A.

@Dalton Dillon

I am assuming you are buying outside of Houston City limits. An appraiser can use an SFR to help generate a comp. Another method they can use is the income method or the cost to build. I would reach out to a local appraiser in your area and ask them if you were to hire them how would they pull comps given no duplex to compare it to.

One of my clients for whom we were building a duplex did not have any in her area so they had to pull comps from about 5 miles out to help create some sort of comparison. Then they add or subtract for location, age, size, etc. 

Best of luck if you need help locating it in Houston let me know and I can try to help find some comps.

@Lilly Fang

I have owned rentals both in CA and TX and only a few times have I had people not rent because someone died. Especially if it was a natural death. Now if your property made it on the 10 o'clock news in your town then you might have some stigma. However, there are crazy people out there who would rent because they hope they can talk to a ghost. 

I have had rentals in CA and TX in which tenants have died throughout the years. If your property shows well and is listed for a good price maybe $50-100 less than the competition you shouldn't have a hard time renting. 

Best of luck

@Whitney Breedlove

I have bought a few. I even had rental properties that tenants died in. One thing to make sure you can verify is how was the cleanup handled. If the seller's insurance paid for a professional decomp company to clean up the aftermath then you should be okay. I bought a house in which the tenant killed himself and the seller had some off-the-street guys come in remove the carpet and paint the floors. If it was cleaned up properly you and your family will be safe and what's today's news is forgotten in a week. Most neighbors forget who lived next to them a year after those people moved out. Your insurance agent might be able to pull up any insurance claims done with the address. 

Best of luck 

Please DM me with more details. What is the zip code? Is it in Flood zone? 

Not sure if this post is still active but I am a builder and developer in Houston. The price per square foot quote is a tricky measurement to go by. Compare apples to apples. Without seeing plans the price per square foot that comes out of a builder's mouth is a guess. The same build on one lot does not equate to the same price on a lot on the other side of town. There is a lot more than just the foundation and framing that goes into hard costs. BUT we normally tell clients for the back of the napkin number to use $122 per sq ft. This will help you see if your land cost and build will pencil in. The duplexes we have built thus far average around $120 sq ft. To get a better idea of what your ideal build would cost, find a build you like on HAR and present that to a builder so they can see the pics (finishes/design etc) and with that particular square footage they can give you an idea of what it will cost.

Hope this helps anyone curious.

Make sure city in which this property is located that you check with the city if they require any permits and if this particular property is current with all health and safety inspections. We are currently building multiple duplexes catering to rent by the room. This type of investment is great cash-flowing property but just like MTR, you are running a business not just a real estate play. The property manager is key. Making sure they have property background checks, and good accounting will make this adventure a lot more successful. Hope it works out.

Best of Luck 

If anyone calls Powell an idiot or says he was too slow to react to the recession, they are not realizing that back in 2018, during their meeting, they stated or wished for an event that would help make inflation extra hot so they could raise rates and gain back the power needed to help combat next recession. Guess COVID was what they wished for. I can't imagine the number of PHDs in that Fed building but we want to think they are stupid. They know what they are doing and unlike us, they are happy banks are failing and housing is coming down. The issue I see is many people compare what is happening to 2008 as their way of predicting what will happen next; however, history didn't start in 2008--look further back at 1930s and 1970s high inflation/high-interest rates leading us into bad times for a long period of time.

Some people say they will jump into the market when it crashes. But they don't consider how they'll buy these deals. They assume the market will crash, but financing will remain the same. I remember at the start of COVID our commercial banker told us he was only lending at 60% LTV. Fear can tighten financial markets, and only those with experience and cash will prevail. We're only seeing the start of this downturn, but rookies are jumping in as if the market had flattened out. The 2008 crash didn't happen overnight--it started back in 2006 in certain parts of the country but became widespread in 2008.

Though new syndicators are still using old playbooks, raising cash will not be easy for them. Many newly constructed properties will be coming online in the near future, and there are many existing newly built single-family properties that cannot be sold, thus creating more inventory as rentals. So, there will be a lot of deals in all asset classes. However, with fewer tenants willing to move out of their current apartments and into newer ones, landlords may have to offer incentives such as one-month free rent in order to get new tenants into their buildings.

I hope that passive investors and general partners who are raising money for current deals will realize that their old playbook won't work if our market heads into a glut. Using an internal rate of return (IRR) and making predictions about what three to five years will hold is, in my opinion, deceptive. Snake oil salesmen are attempting to manipulate numbers to serve themselves. It's fine to need to keep doing deals so you can live off the fees from limited partners (LPs), but be ethical. If you haven't seen a downturn before then hold off doing deals until you have enough capital and people on your team who have experience and can advise.

In the last few years, anyone in real estate regardless of how dumb you were in High School made money. The new market will filter out the real investors. 

If rent and location are not the issues and you have had over 200 views then maybe you need to get a Google number or call from another number into the line to the listing for your property and pretend to be someone interested in the property. See how the property management handles your call and your questions. Sometimes prospects make a decision just on how the management handles their call before stepping into the property. You can see how responsive your management team is. Are they even taking calls or returning voicemails? Since this is your first time working with them you are going through this blindly given you are out of state investor. BP promotes out-of-state investing as being easy but as I am sure you are finding not having a strong team is taxing. Hope you are able to get a renter in there soon.

Best of luck 

@Kevin Bazazzadeh

Thank you for putting this meetup together had fun. Was nice meeting you and hope we get to chat some more about real estate soon. 

@Christian Klaus   You should attend networking events and speak with different GPs, as this is the best way to find a group that fits your needs. Lifestyles is basically doing the same thing: bringing like-minded people together so that the lead can try to sell them on their syndication. Past performance is no indication of future returns; track record and experience in both up and down markets are key. Some groups got lucky with their properties and others have real skills and knowledge. Not sure what city you are in but there are plenty of meetups happening all over; spend some time in these meetups before committing your hard-earned $30k. 

Best of Luck