All Forum Posts by: Nathan Norway

Madan, 

Welcome to BP! Sounds like you have a great wealth of valuable experience and are well rounded especially with the ability to write algorithms! 

If you are looking to start smaller may be worth your time to start researching major cities across the US for criteria you find meets your interests and then find your market and submarkets from there! 

Best of luck to you.

So I'd consult with a real estate agent or do some market research on your own for comparable sales in that area but don't use the zestimate as the true value indicator. Also you are in a business to minimize risk for yourself and completing due diligence is very important. I believe you may be able to write an offer or letter of intent without any liability or losing earnest money but you should definitely work with a lawyer and real estate agent to protect yourself if you try to pursue a property you can't even get into before submitting an offer. 

So one thing keeps coming to mind I've read is as you analyze the property and found numbers that work, don't bend yourself backwards and tweak the numbers to try and get a deal done! 

There will be other deals if the numbers work at 91k that is what they work at, if they work at 100k too then there is potential! You could always inquire about seller financing knowing they would probably want a balloon payment in 3-5 years. 

My best answer back is would buying the property with likelihood of being cash neutral /negative be a good idea when you could find a different property with that money to be flowing positive?

Keep us posted on how it goes!

Well for starters congrats on that milestone! I'd guess you are familiar with the forums and resources on here so that's a good start. 

What is your long term goal? Do you want to house hack to reduce your expenses and increase your ability to save? Do you want to be in apartment complex syndication? Do you want to fix and flip single family homes? I'd start by reading some books / articles and start defining your investing goals to help you narrow down your options for what you've worked so hard to save up for!

David Greene wrote books on out of state investing and BRRRR which could both be applicable to you if your market is pricey. It really comes down to how much those percentages are of your savings, how much cash flow and appreciation could you get with that money buying 1 property versus 3? Keep learning and start to develop a team of people around you to help you achieve your goals!

Best of luck to you!

Wow what a background! Welcome (officially) to BP. I guess I'd be curious if there is any creative tweaking you could do on the CA property in order to stop or slow that financial draining you have month to month and help return it to a break even point? 

It sounds like it has great potential with the details you provided, and I am not sure I would decide to sell it just yet unless you can't stop losing money month to month with your expenses. Have you done any research on 1031 exchanges? That may be an avenue to discuss with your lawyer and/or CPA. That is the only thing that came to mind and I know they discuss it on the podcast when scaling up or laterally in the business. 

Best of luck to you!

Angel, reading online it looks like a voucher / reimbursement type of program offered through HUD.. am I getting that correctly? Are you looking to assist in covering costs to reduce yours when buying a property? I know some states have programs for assistance but sometimes it is income and area dependent. Usually what seems to be common is down payment assistance at least when I have done research in the past.

I'd look for Lenders in here, or even make a marketplace listing searching for a lender or lending program that meets the criteria you are searching for. 
Good Luck!

@Nathan Norway to everyone on this thread. What locations do you prefer? Would having something set up in Meetup be easiest to follow?

My thought is Livonia is pretty central and may have some decent locations, and some spots near Plymouth have great highway access!

@Michael Masterson well done! Congrats and best of luck continuing that deal momentum

@Jim Mundy lots of options, but @Brandon Turner ‘s book on rental property investing or “the ABCs of real estate investing” by Ken McElroy are both pretty good starts to cover a lot of material on the subject!

Hope this helped, best of luck!

@Jake Toth welcome! Let’s connect on BP I’m located in Plymouth Michigan