All Forum Posts by: Nicole Pettis

@Shane Kalepp 

You really should come to our meetups..in fact there is one happening this Saturday at 9am at Stone Creek Coffee on 422 N 5th St. We are having a HML speak and you can connect with many people the cost will be $5

@Michael Henry and I along with @Alex Anderson run the group. We have one every month on the last Saturday of the month. Check out Brew City Real Estate Investing on Meetup and join, that way you know what is happening.

Hope to see you there!

@Landon Dolezal 

Hello!

Well you've got a lot of hustle and that's a good thing! However in my opinion you might want to slow it down a little bit.

Reason being is you are new to this and trying to take on two properties at once when you don't have much experience might be a little much to take on right away and you don't want to loose on two houses in the process. 

My suggestion is this...Focus on goal #1, which would be purchasing the house with the 203k. If I were you I would just buy it myself and let the other two rent. I wouldn't put all 3 on the loan. Because you are setting yourself up for disaster. Its one thing to have a private investor its another to have 2 other partners you know nothing about real estate and want to add their two cents.

Also you have to think about worst case scenarios and exit strategies. For example, what if one of your friends want to sell the house and you don't or vice versa, or one of them gets in a horrible accident and gets sued and the house is part of that suit. Or what if one of them decides they aren't going to pay on the loan any longer..so on and so on. You are better off just getting it yourself and then charging rent..you know House Hacking;)

As for the property, you really need to find true comps. Zillow is not accurate ARV or comps. My suggestion is to partner with an experienced realtor that's familiar with the area and get accurate sold comps so you have a better idea of what the ARV is and do your numbers from there.

With the FHA/203k loan you have to live in the house for a year before you sell it. Although they might have changed that rule, but when we did ours that's how it was. I would ask your mortgage broker to verify. Also FHA changed the rules, you only need 3% down. Keep in mind for the 203k loan you will need a general contractor to do the work, you can't do it yourself.

For the second house, I would wait till you are done with the first, get your feet wet there. I know you don't want to hear that, but trust me you don't want to get in over your head with this, especially if you are going to work with a HML on your second. I would educate yourself more on the numbers...ARV/COMPS/REHAB costs and get very familiar with all of those things. Then I would study the area you want to invest in. Days on the market, true sold comps, demographics, inventory. All of these things are important if you want to flip.

And if you haven't already I recommend getting J Scott's books on Flipping and Rehab, they are probably one of the most informative books I have ever read.

You have a lot of spunk and hustle which means you will be successful, however just slow down a bit, learn and grow. You have plenty of time, real estate isn't going anywhere.

Hope this helps!

Hello Everyone! 

We have a speaker! Scott Lurie with Milwaukee Hard Money. He will be speaking to us about the in's and out's of working with a Hard Money Lender.

As many investors know Hard Money Lending is one of the ways you can purchase real estate. Not only is it a way to borrow money, but it can help Real Estate Investors an opportunity to compete in a competitive real estate market, with the ability to close quickly as a cash buyer.

Our speaker comes with years of experience, not only does Scott run Milwaukee Hard Money lending, but he is an investor and property manager himself. So he knows and understands the inner workings of the real estate investor.

So please join us this Saturday morning it will be a great meeting!

@Kyle Gregg 

Hello! I am guessing you are thinking about buying a foreclosure with a 203k loan. Its completely doable with a full time job, you just have to make time for it. As for the contractors and inspectors, some of them will work with you on your time. Not always but some. Contractors will come on a Saturday to give you bids and such. You just have to figure out how to manage your time. 

Hope this helps!

@Eric DeVito 

Welcome! There are a lot of free resources here on BP to help you on your way with your Real Estate Career.

The first on is BP Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing

http://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investing

Then there is How to Flip Houses
http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/01/07...

I definitely recommend you invest in J Scott's Book on Flipping and Rehab costs
http://get.biggerpockets.com/flippingbook/

Then there are the podcasts and the blogs and under the "learn" tab at the top menu is filled with all the information you need. 

You really just need to take the time and read all the information and educate yourself before you dive in. REI is such a huge risk, especially flipping.

As for your question. You will know these answers once you understand how to analyze a property. However, once you find a good deal and have it under contract to purchase, you can find those answers by calling the local utilities and ask them what is the average monthly bill for the address. As for the insurance, you will need to call an agent and get rates on a VACANT property. 

Hope this helps!

Good luck!

Fingers crossed:)

I think @Arthur Banks mentioned a consultant. The bank had a person assigned to me to keep up to date on the progress of the rehab and she answered any questions I had. But I didn't really have a "consultant" per say.

Hello everyone!

Its that time again. We are back to our normally scheduled program for the meetups. They are back on the last Saturday of the month at Stone Creek Coffee from 9am - Noon. As for a speaker, we are waiting to hear back from a few people. So I will update the thread when I know more.

Schedule will stay the same as well.

Networking starts at 9am - 9:15am
Introductions around 9:15
Speaker will speak for 30-45min

We do have the room till noon, so feel free to network, connect and talk. 

Excited to see everyone!

@Satha Palani 

I didn't bring the contractors in for the estimate process until after the inspection, just so I knew everything that needed to be fixed.

Also, I didn't tell the contractors my budget, until I decided on a final one.

With my process, I brought in 3 different contractors to get bids. I gave them a scope of work and let them bid from there. Out of the 3 contractors, only one was premium. The other two were reasonable. My final decision was based on the one I had the best relationship with. 

When they send the estimates it will be itemized. It has to be for the 203k.

As for the appraiser, that was with the FHA and she was brought in about a week before closing. In fact she was the reason our closing got pushed out. She didn't get our property line correct and included some things in the Scope of Work that wasn't on our property. So we had to pay her again to come out and redo the appraisal for closing.

Now that I think about it some more(sorry its been over a year) she did both the appraisal and inspection, because we had to add a few more things to the 203k estimate that we didn't plan on after she was done. Sorry for the confusion. So she was more of an appraiser than an inspector, but she did note things that we had to fix.

I would do some more homework to see if you need an FHA inspector with the standard. 

My best advice is to do all the pre-planning you can. If and when they accept the offer, get your contractors lined up to look at the property and then who ever you land with, schedule them for the day of closing or right after.

I would counter offer to your Maximum Allowable Offer based on your numbers. If you can't go up from $97k, then you might want to move on. But that is only if purchasing the property close to asking doesn't work for you.

@Cal C. 

Graigies are the new beige:) Meaning anything neutral with a gray tone or just gray itself. Below are some examples. Please note I do not represent Benjamin Moore in any way. They just happened to have the best neutral colors for staging and selling homes(based on the experts). In fact when I "googled" the best paint color for selling homes the 2 consistent colors were Bennington Gray and Stonington Gray. You can probably get these colors in any brand that you like. Hope this helps!

@Satha Palani 

It appears that the rules are different in every state. Which is odd, because this is a federal program. 

For instance, @Sam McPeek had an option in draws, to where as I did not. Also he was able to do direct deposit with the checks and then pay the contractors, my checks were directly made out to them.

And then with @Arthur Banks him and I exchanged stories and he had to do things I didn't and vice versa. I had to bring in an FHA appraiser before the loan was closed, to whereas he didn't.

My biggest advice is to stay in constant contact with the bank. I emailed them every week to let them know where we were with the job. So when problems arise they new about it and we could handle it accordingly. 

I would do it again. I really didn't have many problems and I had a great GC who did a fabulous job.

Good luck!