All Forum Posts by: Patrick Britton

@Andrew Cowles With respect, I think we all need a lot more information before providing any opinions or advice. Primarily, I'd be curious to know your why and your how. Why do you want to be in South Florida, besides the obvious reason of being a super awesome place to live :) why do you want to invest in self storage? What are some of your long term goals and aspirations besides moving down to the Sunshine State? then also, what do you have in order to start on this journey? Active military means you have access to a VA, 0% down loan so perhaps you may want to consider speaking with a loan officer to see if there might be an easier way to get where you want to be eventually.

@Leah WesWholesaling is a pretty broad “profession.” Curious to know a little bit more about your end goals though. Where the market is right now in pretty much every area of the country, wholesaling is going to be extra difficult, but not impossible.

@Joshua Ruvalcaba welcome to Bigger Pockets! It might seem bizarre, but your experience as a bodybuilder is going to do you a lot of favors in real estate.

@Ernesto Uribe  Unfortunately, your timing is far from ideal. Housing is overpriced across most of the country and with about $30,000 to invest you might need to consider buying in the Midwest or some other less expensive area. As this would be your first property may I suggest considering a turnkey provider, perhaps out of Chicago, Memphis, Cincinnati or something like that? This way, you know exactly what you're going to get, a tenant will already be in place and the property will already be cash flowing.

Please remember that this is a process and in order to get to your final destination you're going to have to take a few steps forward. This might not mean investing in your backyard, which I think is overemphasized, especially here on Bigger Pockets.

@Travis Bagley With a 2% origination charge, a prepayment penalty, and fees on top of more fees, you're obviously dealing with a commercial lender. For starters, you have my sympathy.

You have the exact same problem I faced about three years ago. I wish I could go back in time and do things correctly and get on the right track to begin with.

Is there any possibility you could actually quitclaim these properties back into your personal name? All too often, real estate investors are concerned with a tenant slipping on a banana peel and getting sued to death. This is why "they" all tell you to buy properties with an LLC but of course these geniuses forget that very few lenders want to lend to an LLC and those who do will make you pay for it!

Please realize that getting sued to death by a tenant is an incredibly rare event in which multiple things all have to go wrong at the same time. Have a chat with an insurance broker and see if there are some better and less expensive ways of protecting yourself. specifically, ask about umbrella coverage policies.

There are also some interesting tax benefits, in my humble opinion, from non-LLC ownership. But you should really speak to a tax expert about those things in detail.

@Miguel Angel Rodriguez This is a pretty easy solution 😊 But your answer is not going to come from bigger pockets. Is going to come from speaking with three professionals specifically: an attorney, a commercial loan officer and a CPA.  Ideally, these pros will be located near your future properties :)

Frankly, a lot needs to be worked out before you guys get into the details but you'll need an attorney to discuss how to operate the business, where income and expenses are going, etc. you need to speak with a commercial loan officer if all 3 of you are going to be on a loan.  And you need a CPA from the start to make sure you're not making it terrible mistake in terms of tax implications.  

Three person partnerships can get complicated so best to get on the right track now while things are relatively uncomplicated.

@Brittany Stradling There's also the possibility that a lot of people are exaggerating their accomplishments. But suffice it to say that it usually comes down to finding additional sources of money, a business partner, very inexpensive houses, or a combination of the aforementioned. I went from zero houses to 8 within 18 months and am happy to give you the juicy details privately if you're interested.  

@John Preston Neely www.gosection8.com is one of the better resources to get a sense of the rental amount and locations, etc.

Here is a benefit I haven't seen anybody mentioned yet: they will never be late paying rent. remember last year? Remember when millions of people lost their jobs in March, April and May of 2020?  Well, no Section 8 tenant failed to pay rent.  so that's a benefit.  A big one frankly.

The cons are actually more relevant to the property itself than anything else; the property needs to be in tip top condition. There are also annual or biennial (every 2 years) property inspections. there's also a potential big issue if the tenants have kids under a certain age, but that will vary depending on location.

I might make the argument that it is better to be forced to maintain the property in good condition but at the same time there may also be costly repairs that don't necessarily add anything to the bottom line, but are required in order to have a Section 8 tenant.  Clear as mud?  😊

Lastly, if you're using a property manager I would make the argument it is important to use a property manager with significant experience with Section 8 tenants since their application and needs are often significantly more complicated and require expert advice.  For instance, my property manager is, in my opinion, the ultimate expert on Section 8 tenants. He might have some more to add: @Mark Ainley with GC Realty & Development

This is somewhat real estate related but I've got a couple of ideas for apps and software in the real estate industry I'd like to bring to market. Anyone have any ideas on how to find relatively inexpensive programmers for what even I would consider to be a simplistic scraping program?

I've spent the better part of the last 16 months trying to find companies that sell the software but I guess it doesn't exist yet and I'd like to change that.

thanks! 

I own a number of rentals in south Chicago. We've had some pretty high expenses each time a tenant moves out, such that the turnover costs can eat up all of the net income from the previous year.

I don't believe it is the property manager, but rather the tenants and perhaps the age of the properties too. I am now seriously considering selling everything and buying somewhere else.

The question is, where in the country are new builds/new construction selling for under 150k/SFR? Anyone have any locales they are willing to share? Right now Allen Park, MI is on my radar.

Thanks