All Forum Posts by: Joshua Woolls

Hello! My name is Erik Romzek, and after about a year of trolling and soaking up as much information as I can, I thought it would be appropriate to finally introduce myself to the BP community.

I'm a 30 yr old married University of Michigan grad, and am looking to take my interests in real estate and turn it into an income. Myself and wife do not (yet) have kids, but are hoping to poise ourselves now to support longer term income & financial goals.

I am primarily interested in SFH and multi family buy & hold, and long term vacation rental opportunities.. but am open minded to learn more about the commercial space as well. I'm interested in networking with other local investors, and continuing to increase my overall RE investment education...however I think I may be getting to the 'analysis paralysis' stage! I have not yet pulled the cord on my first investment, but am ready for my first good opportunity.

I very much look forward to networking with the BP community, and hope to start earning an income based on good real estate decisions soon. 

Thanks!

Erik Romzek

 You know what's outrageous in Michigan?  Auto Insurance.  I digress.  LOL

The closest thing to MLS access is Realtor.com, since it is operated by the National Association of Realtors, is going to be the most up-to-date. It gets direct feeds from the MLS's, and updates at least every 24 hours. The sold info comes from the MLS, not the assessors website, so it will be actual and current.

Otherwise, most MLS's have public accessible sites that you can get much of your comparable info from, and it's as up to date as the MLS is.

@Alexander Merritt 

Thanks for your thoughts and these resonate with what @Joe Villeneuve pointed out earlier.  He noted that he had that initial cold feet at investing in Detroit but now see the light at the end of the tunnel. The folks out there running the city are business-minded and want to move things forward......

@Scott K.  keeps talking about millions and corporations but I do not agree with him....I have met retail investors from Canada here buying Detroit investment.  Even at that, when you see hedge funds going into a market, you ask yourself questions..

I totally agree with @Joe Villeneuve  that Detroit is not for out-of staters but with partnership with boots on ground, its time to begin to look closely at what going on there.

Do not let all the negativeness dampen your interest.....opportunities don't come dressed in ribbon!

This is what we did to grow our portfolio.  We bought with cash and then did the rehab.  We sought out the loans after placing a tenant.  We used portfolio lenders at local banks.  It was slow at first because we would only get 80% of what we had in the properties, but after a few, we could get 85% of the current agreed upon value without an appraisal.  Emails with pictures and we closed within two weeks.  

Having the property paid off took all of the stress out of the property. Then when we got the loan we made anywhere from 25% to 80% ROI's. One property was even an infinite return because I got $15,000 more out of the refi than I had into the property and it still cash flowed >$300/month.

This helped us grow while we lived in a good rental market.  I know it is contrary to some of the math focused investors here, but we paid them all off with the proceeds of another house sale recently.  I feel like I locked in my gains here.  This secured our retirement, and now all of the money goes toward future growth.