All Forum Posts by: Tyler Blackwell

Oh, gotta love it when you get called a newbie! 

It still happens to those of us with experience, or at least it did for me recently. I spoke with an investor's assistant, and when I wasn't willing to just put out an offer on the first phone call, she acted as if I wasn't playing the game right and even called me "sweetie," and not in a nice way :) After investing for over 10 years and having over two dozen rental properties and been involved with bird dogging, wholesale deals, flips, small and large remodels, holds, etc., I'm not saying everything we do is perfect or refined, but we're not newbies. Bottom line here is that her words don't offend or affect me the way they might have when I was new to the game. Know that what you're doing isn't out of bounds, stick with your plan, and execute.

Ultimately, a deal is born when there is mutual need and mutual benefit. What we do is a service to the people we're willing to help, but to find those people, some sifting may be required :)

@Phil Wells a coworker of mine, an executive at a medical startup, did just what you mentioned. She lived in a tiny studio apartment in Manhattan with her fiancee, both earning 6 figure incomes. No cars, difficult transport, expensive living. Both of them, in theory, could have been remote but weren't, and now they are remote as a consequence of stay at home orders. As of this moment,  they're nomads, intending to hop from AirBnB to AirBnB in fun locations (presently in a quaint vacation spot in New England) once every couple months, getting a taste of the United States before settling...

@Zachary Schnautz I am familiar with the property you're talking about. This property goes to show how tight the market is. Their estimate for rehab was low (their flooring replacement budget was just slightly more than $1/ft, for example), but even if you sold for $275k with $20k in repairs, buying at $217k means you net a whopping $10,000 after realtor fees, excise tax, and closing costs, and that's assuming you have your own cash to make that work and you're not using hard money...

I'm not sure who's buying this? Maybe a contractor married to a real estate agent? Margins are thin...

Nice work @Curtis Bidwell! I don't have to know anything about its condition to know that house is an absolute steal!

@Freddy Rondon I'm closing on a property next week in Chehalis that I found on Craigslist! I never thought my Craigslist browsing would amount to anything! :) They have a fairly strong but affordable market and it's easier to find discounted properties there than in Olympia/Lacey. Wholesale deals that crop up in Olympia/Lacey often go for way too much and competition is stiff; one company that I'm aware of requires offers the same night that they do walk-throughs.  I'm doing my own marketing as well to find off-market deals...

You can refi before 6 months (I've done it) but I haven't found anyone willing to do a cash-out refi before 6 months. For some deals that I wanted to get out of hard money, I refinanced them before 6 months, and I was OK to leave my cash in the deal. Waiting six months sometimes feels like an eternity for your money to sit "idle."

@Stefan Winkler I did bring up Centralia/Chehalis, which is 30 minutes south of Olympia. I'm not sure if it's designated this way, but I'd say it's a tertiary Seattle market, but probably too far for any Seattle commuting. But for cash flow and equity balance, it looks good from here. My job takes me to Centralia occasionally, so it's convenient for me. We own a 4-plex there (and looking for commercial MF properties there now...) and have been pleased with the cash flow and appreciation over the last couple years. 

@Morris Sandvig If you're looking at the market, not so often! I almost ignore the MLS these days (ok, not completely) because there is precious little multifamily inventory and everyone is competing for the same deals. I bought some units off market last year via direct mail and wholesalers and all the units I bought were purchased with cash flow in mind. But if you want to be able to buy off the MLS and cash flow, I think the best bet for our friend Stefan is a more approachable market like Spokane or Centralia.

I think your best bet with the regions you're considering is probably either Olympia or Spokane/Spokane Valley. I've looked a lot at putting some chips on Spokane given their market is strong and likely to grow further. For an inland northwest city, Spokane is dirt cheap. There is some crime there and some rough neighborhoods, but there are some good small multifamily opportunities in good neighborhoods as well. 

Olympia is still priced well in comparison to it's I-5 neighbors, and I can echo @Andrew Hodgson's optimism on the market: there is a lot of growth in the area as well as price pressure from Seattle/Tacoma markets. The economy is diverse and from a citizen-perspective, it makes the city interesting and vibrant. Cash flow is getting harder here, but it's a good long-term equity growth area. I think you can get both in Centralia/Chehalis, just 30 min south of Olympia. 

Hey @Jose Diaz, you don't need access to the MLS in Washington, just use Redfin. It covers most of the state, but not some areas, last I checked. Data from Redfin comes from MLS. There are some places around Olympia that deals can still be found, though properties found on the MLS can be rather competitive. For lower end, cheaper properties check out Tenino, Bucoda, Rainier, Shelton, Centralia, and of course the entirely of Grays Harbor, especially Hoquiam and Aberdeen. If you're keeping it as a rental just keep your tenant pool in mind, as there are some rough spots in the harbor.

I've spoken with my local bank about a business line of credit based on equity of properties in our LLC, and they can do it, so YES, it's possible. It can be a little pricey if you have a lot of properties because each will require a formal appraisal, but in your case for only one building it might be reasonable. Consider it a cost of business, right? Out here in the Puget sound an appraisal runs about $800 these days. When I moved here in 2010 it was only $300.

I was looking for a vacation rental in Palms Springs. They have legislation preventing using multi-family properties as short-term vacation rentals and they have other regulations about parking, noise levels, etc. I think municipalities would be very smart to do the same thing, since converting multifamily units to AirBnB rentals reduces affordable housing inventory and drives up prices. It's a problem in high cost of living areas, maybe not so much in yours. 

I can say in our experience (we have a basement apartment AirBnB), there are vastly more AirBnB units now in my city than when we started a few years ago. This has increased competition for price, so we've had to lower our nightly rates about 15% from our peak. It's still better than renting to a long term tenant...