All Forum Posts by: Niko Lyons

Good Evening BP! I am excited to be making my second post here. I recently sold my first ever investment, which I house hacked in Clearwater, FL. I wrote in a bit more detail about that experience in my only other post (up to this point). Long story short, I have 45k I am looking to invest and I'm eager to learn and gain experience but am not willing to make an impulse decision putting it in a riskier situation than is necessary. 

The knowledge I gained from the first property was immense. In a span of 15 month I went from being your average 22 year old apartment tenant to someone learning how to negotiate contracts, hire contractors and engineers and create a plan to make my vision a reality. Let me tell you, it was a steep learning curve.  However I couldn't be happier with how it turned out on closing day. No skipped steps, everything done safely and properly allowed me to hand the keys to the buyer with full confidence that this home would be as good to him as it was to me. 

While my purpose for this post is to ask a question I'd rather open a larger discussion with as many people as possible about the following:

Ep. 408 of our beloved BP podcast features an investor, Emma Powell. One of her strategies to get the snowball rolling downhill was to be a private lender. Lending to other, much more experienced real estate investors with the interest of learning from them on a deal that Emma was now involved with as a lender. So she was now learning a ton of info from this investor as well as adding value to her new partners business in the way of providing capital.

I'm fascinated with that concept and am wondering if anyone else has had good luck with that in the beginning.

Alternatively, I have been looking into finding partners such as hard money lenders, agents, contractors, etc. to help do my own flips or BRRRR's. (Hard or private money because due to COVID I no longer am an ideal candidate for conventional loans.)

Thank you all in advanced and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Have a great evening,

Niko Lyons.

Investment Info:

Mobile home fix & flip investment in Clearwater.

Purchase price: $182,000
Cash invested: $30,000
Sale price: $275,000

This is my first ever investment. I purchased this as my primary residence in July of 2019 and through a lot of time learning I am closing on Feb. 5th 2021 with over a 100% return on my investment!

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Paying Rent!

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Through a local real estate agent I know personally. Negotiated by inspecting the property, and negotiating problems to be fixed, or price to be lowered.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional Loan 3 % down

How did you add value to the deal?

Completely renovating the interior and exterior.

What was the outcome?

A beautiful place I am proud to call home, but even more excited to call my first investment.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Set clear expectations with contractors, scopes of work, time lines, payment schedules, etc.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Tory Belloise is an awesome agent in the area, very friendly, professional, and punctual!