All Forum Posts by: Matt Bowler

@Alex Wojcik I did not. We ended up outsourcing our cold calling and in the end dropped it altogether. I’d imagine leveraging Zapier you could creatively solve most the problems I had then. We use it a lot now for similar operations. 

I was not part of the Virginia development but bought into one of their deals in Dyersburg, TN. It's the exact same story, just with numbers about half of what the OP had (purchase price $55k, down payment $30k). Mine was not in an IRA, so I guess I could take the loss if I walked away. This was before I was doing this full-time. I would NEVER even consider this house today. I actually forgot I still need to deal with this headache...

My tenant is a long term tenant. He was there before I bought the house and still is and has always paid the same price.  So it is odd that the price that GEG told me my rent was in the pro-forma was 25% higher than what was being paid and increasing every year.  When I spoke with the property manager they said there is no way I could get more than I was getting without significant work and upgrades to the house. To be fair, I think they were probably put in a tough situation.

When I talked to GEG about it they give some excuse about how they give you a one-time payment for the first year differences 6-months into ownership.  Ignoring the fact that the ENTIRE BASIS of the purchases is predicated on the rent being what they stated. This IS in their paperwork, but as you are signing it you are thinking "who cares, the rent is what you told me it is". In other words, they aren't super clear on the fact that they are just basically making up numbers on the pro-forma, not even the current rent, which they DO have, is used.

Their pro-forma is a real piece of work. I mean it's a wonderland for people who like to play in Excel all day, but it's just pencil-whipping a property. Value is built up around assumed appreciation. 

Does anyone have an interest in seeing the paperwork from this deal (with personal information removed obviously)?

I'm still working on my first deal, but one of the tips I was given was to ask for the filed taxes and use the expenses claimed there since everyone tries to maximize their deductions.  

I didn't read this entire thread, so maybe I'm repeating something. First of all, why do you want this particular apartment deal? I see about 5 deals a day from 12-100 units and most of them are not worth looking at. Here is why I personally would not look at this deal...the /door cost is over $200,000.  There isn't a huge demand for high-end apartment rentals and these will be the first to tank in a downturn.  Most people I know who are doing this are buying for under $40,000/door (exclude California and New York).

The bigger question though is what type of apartment investor do you want to be? I personally think you CAN buy your first apartment within 1 year.  The easiest one for someone in your situation would probably be looking for value add, but don't fall in love with every apartment you see.  I'd expect for 1 out of 25 to 50 to be a good fit. In order to do this you are going to need to be able to raise 20% of the purchase price PLUS the improvement budget from a private investor. You are going to need to be able to sign for the remaining 80%. This means you need to start networking now and you will need to start looking at smaller deals (keep it between 25 and 50 units). The good news here is that commercial loans like this are WAY easier than a typical residential loan. One of my local banks can underwrite something like this in 3-4 days.

The silver lining I suppose is that once you do your first deal, improve value (and presumably cash-out refi), you will have cash flow, cash in your pocket from the refi, increased net worth, and a private investor who just got an awesome return on their money and is hungry for another deal.

Start reading and learn this stuff like the back of your hand.

I'd probably let this slide too unless I had a bad feeling about it for some reason.

In my experience, yes, that is the correct pallpark. My current lender is at $150/draw, with a max of 5 draws per loan.

I use KW Greater Cleveland Southwest and they are the best I’ve experienced in the last 3-4 years. I live in Missouri and have houses in Cleveland, Columbus, and Tennessee. In Columbus I am on my 3rd property manager. Point being, I’ve been through the struggles of remote management, and KW is pretty much the best I’ve seen. 

https://www.rentfromkw.com/

Some benefits

- being able to get someone to talk to you (this is surprisingly hard with most)

- monthly appfolio P&L for each door

- thorough and timely updates on house or tenant issues

Fee structure is typical, first month rent for tenant placement fee + 10% of monthly rents. 

Let me know if you have any questions. 

 I have not used it on my existing campaign, but I think I'll layer that in on the next one or possibly add to the current one now that I weeded out the undeliverable addresses.

I am in month 2 of a 6 month campaign with OLM. I brought my own list of absentee high equity owners (with a few other triggers).  Landed and sold a deal through that campaign that resulted in roughly a $25k profit with 4 months still to go.

A lot of these people you are mailing to get mailed to constantly. I did ask one individual about it and he said he never calls any of them back. Obviously I asked why he chose to call me back and his response was "the envelope".  When you see their product you will see why it stands out.

On another note, I also use Ryan's service Call Porter to handle my inbound calls.  Another great service! This is the way you are supposed to do it. Let other people handle the details so you can focus on growing your business.

Thanks Cesar. Yes I started with both in the past 3 months. I already have way too much going on in Podio to switch, plus there are some really basic things I can’t do in Mojo, like append data to an existing list. I tried to use Mojo for everything initially actually.