All Forum Posts by: Michael Jones

@Rich Hupper I actually have a book coming out on this in the next month.

If you've never done this, I would highly recommend a GC. While it's possible that you'll come out ahead managing the contractors yourself, I think this will take longer and have a higher probability that one of your contractors will do a less than desirable job.

You should make darn sure you get a good engineer that the city will vouch for.

Pad your budget/estimate by 20%. Theres going to be surprises.

Absolutely, positively DO NOT START until the plans are 100% approved by the city. Do not rely on an estimate until the plans are approved by the city. Things will change. Even if the city approved the first round, they always have things they catch and want to change at the final approval.

@Jordan Berry what kind of cash flow are you seeing across the number of machines you're running.

I've heard a bit about this niche, but think you must be in a lower rent area to make this work?

@Zoe Lee I recommend you pursue this angle. It's worth continuing to try to work with insurance. Your tenants should have submitted a work order to the PM if they were having issues. If they did not submit an order, then there's no evidence that there were issues and no reason your insurance company should only side with one side of the story that is entirely verbal.

If you have evidence that the septic maintenance company was not maintaining the system and fulfilling their part of the contract, you may be able to take them to small claims court.

@Zoe Lee I saw your first post about this issue.

You should have had a contract with a septic company who should have been conducting multiple visits and tests throughout the year.

Make sure they didn't fail you. If they did not come out or if they missed something, you may be able to hold them liable.

@Travis Wilkes hey Travis, I'm in Hutto and would love to connect. I'm working on a commercial deal in Leander and Georgetown right now.

Taylor is going to blow up.

@Tyler D. - you could find a 4-plex for $200k to $250k. If you look in Harker Heights/Killeen, you could get it for sub $200k and pursue Section 8 possibly. You may not need Section 8 to make it work, but it's an added benefit.

Invest in Temple/Belton. Relatively close to Austin and Waco. Still affordable and not a booming economy. Economy will continue to grow modestly and will allow for common sense appreciation as well as steady job growth. I have a few SFR there and will continue to invest in the area.

The pro is that you can wrap the renovation money into the loan and the loan has an interest rate similar to a standard primary residence purchase. This is a benefit over hard money or having to go hunt for a separate HELOC.

The con, is that you cannot treat these like hard money or be at risk for committing mortgage fraud which is rampant right now and everyone is cracking down hard. 

@Raj Singh how are you structuring this creative finance? 3.25% is killer.

@Raxit Patel absent anyone making a firm recommendation, reach out to a local large accounting firm and they can make the recommendation.

Make sure you work with a CPA on whether this makes sense. Accelerating deductions may or may not be helpful.