All Forum Posts by: Michael Dumler

@Fawzi James Jr, I just sent you a message. If you're utilizing a primary home loan product with 5% down, you must reside in the property for at least a year.

@Justin Skeete, @Josh Bowser, Taylor Trupia should be able to assist with this! 

@Cade Anders, without question, the most critical activity I would advise you to fulfill is to educate yourself immensely on the investment strategy of house hacking. There are plenty of books and YouTube videos that you can reference to understand the concept of house hacking further. It can be debated, but house hacking is one of the best entry methods and risk-averse strategies in real estate investing. 

In the meantime, it's more so about becoming financially sound so that you can pull the trigger on a deal when the time comes, i.e., saving religiously, building your credit, paying off any outstanding debt you may owe, etc. 

Let me know if you're in ATL anytime soon, and we can link up.  

@Jardin Gwin, I don't intend to steer anyone in the wrong direction, and especially if you have a passion for real estate sales, you should pursue the industry. However, unveiling a realistic gut check since you're working full time and enrolled in school, it's fair to point out that your competition is fierce. Let's be honest; they have the time, energy, skills, team, experience, and resources to efficiently identify and source potential deals and successfully disposition them to end buyers. I'm sure you've heard that it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of a skill.

If you see yourself one day doing this full-time and operating it as a business, then by all means, continue with the education process and hone in on developing your skills. Wholesaling is feasible, but you must be in it long-term to achieve results. Realistically, getting your first deal in the pipeline takes about six months of consistent prospecting. My two cents -it's very challenging to wholesale part-time, and your time and energy may be better spent elsewhere, i.e., working and saving capital to acquire an invesment property.   

@Ashantia Vice, sorry if this seems a little upfront and too direct. However, I'm trying to gain a better understanding of your experience. The first thing I would ask you is, have you ever successfully sourced and closed a wholesale deal before? If the answer is no, I would highly recommend that you don't make any rash decisions and go spending thousands on VAs. Cold calling, particularly using VAs to make those calls, is a long-term, nurturing business plan. Realistically, depending on volume, tracking of lead/lag indicators, and how well your systems operate and perform, don't expect results for at least 6 months. Therefore, given your budget timeline, you're already at significant risk here.  

More importantly, who is the heck is training all of these VAs? Sales is absolutely a skill, just like any other profession. To my understanding, VAs are decent at initial points of contact, but for everything else, I highly doubt they'll have the skills or knowledge to perform your requested tasks successfully. Maybe someone else in the BP community who has experience hiring VAs can provide further insights on this.

@Jeffrey Hall, you'd be committing mortgage fraud. 

@Nicholas A., it's challenging to answer your question without knowing your current experience in real estate investing. Do you already have a couple of deals under your belt, or are you a complete beginner looking for your first property to tackle? If it's the latter, I would advise reducing your target markets to only one specific location. You are spreading your time and energy too thin by trying to take on three separate markets. Moving forward, pick one area to focus on and hone your strategy to source deals from there. If you have REI experience and a few deals operating, how did you go about sourcing and acquiring those properties in the past?

@Dominic Petoral, at this price point, the property will be in an absolute war zone in most markets. As others have noted, I highly advise saving up more and house-hacking your first deal to gain entry into real estate investing. 

@Scott R., you could hire an appraiser to assess the property and compile a report to obtain an accurate evaluation. Otherwise, connect and consult with a real estate agent who can provide similar comps to justify the ARV. Simply relying on Zillow's algorithm is not advised. What do you intend to do with the property? Is it your primary residence?

@Taqiyyah Ellis, a business loan/line of credit or private lender will likely be your best and most realistic option. Unfortunately, most hard money lenders do not have loan products for maintenance funds/expenses. However, as noted above, I recommend exploring the offer and creative strategy of structuring a lease option. It sounds like there may be an opportunity there, given the scenario.