All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@David Schnaak Welcome and best of luck in Indianapolis! I live up in WY and have been looking at some Midwest markets - I'd be interested to see how Indy treats you.

@Lauren Reed I have no experience investing there but am originally from the Thumb. I've looked at Detroit on and off for the last few years with some interests, but just could never get the numbers to work. Sure, you can find a place for $10K and fix it up nice and try to sell for $80K, but you have to realistically think about who would want a home in some of those areas. 

Unfortunately, so many areas are just sitting vacant because I definitely agree that the character and architecture are awesome!

I'm thinking now that Ford is planning to revamp the old Union Station, Corktown and surrounding areas could see significant growth. Other than that - I'd be very hesitant with mostly all other areas.

@Steve Carlson Finding a partner who has a W-2 could be an option.

Do you have any debt? You just have to understand why the bank is concerned...if you have no other source of income, in their eyes, you'll just be depleting that $200,000 on life's expenses until you run out of cash. 

@Josh Pryor See if the seller will consider holding the note (seller financing). If the owner's main concern is it being a hassle, seller financing it to you would still allow them the opportunity to earn steady income off of the property. It can also give you some time to build up more capital and you can plan for a balloon payment in 5-10 years where you'd be refinancing with a bank via a conventional loan.

@James Nix Is this your first deal? If so, definitely not the second property. 

Next question I'd ask is why has the population in town 1 declined? Industry moving out? Crime rate increasing? If your goal is to get to those 20 properties, it honestly seems like neither of these deals are good. But if you really are looking to get started and learn, I'd go with option A. Just make sure you have exit strategies in place in case things go south.

@Jason Stoltzfus Welcome to BP! I love your goal and I think that by starting at your age, you could achieve it and then some. 

Obviously books, podcasts, and BP will help you get almost all of the education you'll ever need. Are you intending to stay in Lancaster? If so, I'd advise you make great connections with local lenders, contractors, etc. If you have a credit score built up already, I think that an FHA 203K would be a great way to go for you. Although you have to live there for a year, you could try to find a duplex or quadplex. While living there, you can still do other deals elsewhere with conventional loans. Depending on your cash reserve situation, you can always work to partner with family/friends who can bring the cash to the table until you can eventually buy them out.

I'd also advise sticking to your current job until you can maybe start selling some homes as an agent and earn some commissions to put towards investments. You've got a long career ahead of you, best of luck!

@Scott McGill Have you spoken to them over the phone? If not, I'd recommend that you have a conversation with them and voice your concerns. If they are a legitimate operation, they'll be willing to disclose how their business operates. Google reviews can easily be faked and I'm not sure BBB rankings carry much weight for these type of lenders.

That's a rather large difference in interest between One True Loan and your local lender, but there is a lot of value in having that local relationship - especially moving forward into the future with new possible deals.

@Kenneth Clarke I live in Wyoming, so I can't tell you where to go or who to talk to, but I can give you some advice on what to do:

Learn everything you can about analyzing deals on BP podcast, webinars, books, forums, etc. and commit to analyzing 10 deals a week. It doesn't matter whether the deals are good deals or not, you are just building the skills of understanding what to look for and what parameters you can mentally set in your head. If you analyze 10 deals a week for a year, you'll have looked at over 500 total deals. This way, when a property does come up, you are comfortable with analyzing all facets of the deal.

@Alex Silang Take my words with a grain of salt as I've never been a LL, but I would say you're being too idealistic. There's a reason the CEO of the bank you work for isn't the one buried in excel like you are. He/she has bigger decisions to make in regards to growing the business and making strategic expansions. The same thing applies to real estate in my mind. If your goal is to receive all of your income at some point in the future primarily from real estate, being a full-time LL will make it very difficult for you to scale.

You need to be worrying about acquiring new properties and scaling more so than doing the work of a PM. Also, why learn a new business in PM when you can outsource that to a PM business? @Brandon Turner has discussed this often in the podcasts: sometimes your time is better leveraged focusing on the strengths - and if your strengths are in excel and crunching numbers, you should be able to run the numbers on a lot of deals to find the good ones.

@Kourtni Y. Welcome to Bigger Pockets, it's great to have you! Best of luck getting started down there. I've heard good things about those markets for buy and hold...I've got some friends who are pilots at Davis-Monthan, so I now have an excuse to head down there and do some boots on the ground research. :)

Are you looking at any specific parts of Tucson/Phoenix?