All Forum Posts by: Rafael Floresta

A lot of cities collect tax through airbnb already.

Check this out for the legal info:

http://www.roomscore.org/report/san_jose

You can try to list it, and see how the demand is. I would highly recommend having either a 3rd person to photograph and stage your house, unless you really thing you got it down. If you are not sure, it is likely your clutter will make your house rent for less. 

Your house is the product! :) 

@AJ Wharton Foreclosures dont go on MLS. Once they are foreclosed they turn into bank owned, and then go on MLS or are sold in blocks.

Chester and Darby arent A neighborhoods but still good on cashflow. My best rental is in Darby. 

Real estate is a inefficient market. In the stock market, an Apple stock is a apple stock. The product is uniform. There is only one price for that product. In the real estate market, you may find the best house in the worst neighborhood might be you best investment, and vice versa. 

Being a novice it is hard to think what are your goals, but it is still worth the time. Talk to other landlords, flippers and verify if your plan is an OK plan to start. Once you buy a couple houses, manage a rental over a couple turnovers, you will realize if you are really able to deliver on your plan, and might need to adjust your plan to fit your reality. 

There are lots of people out there that dream big, and end up not getting anywhere. I'd rather start small, and buy houses, have tenants and learn from the experience than to spend time making finding the 'best' or 'right' way. 

Start now. If you want to be a landlord, your first purchase will have the most time to pay itself back, so start now and learn from it.

I think starting with wholesale is a bad idea. Unless you have someone to hold your hand and show you the ropes, it is likely you will spin your wheels for nothing. It is likely that the deals you will find wont be that good to start, and to expect a wholesale fee from it makes it even harder. Wholesale is hard. 

Sorry for being blunt, but people listen to the podcasts and think they can make their way into real estate wholesaling without putting skin in the game. It is not that easy.

I think the idea is great. I wish I lived in moderate climated and done that. You certainly would have to zone it for RV parking/trailler park.

If you are really into this, I would love to be involved and help you find the info you need. I would invest in this business model. 

Hey AJ, also do you own your house? That is usually the easiest way to start.

http://www.meetup.com/delcopropertyinvestors-pa/

I help them run it. Great group. 

Investing in Jersey is hard. Even the laws are bad for landlords. You can only have 1.5 times rent as deposit, where in PA 2x is the standard. I live in South Jersey and I ended up investing on Delaware county (aka Delco). It is easier to cashflow out there. Philly is good too, but you need to have a thick skin to deal with the city. Their property tax is really low, but I suspect over the next few years things are going to change as the yuppies are moving in and will require better school for their offsprings. 

I help run DPI, which is a group mostly of landlords and flippers from Delco.  You should check it out.

http://www.meetup.com/delcopropertyinvestors-pa/

Hey Brian, I am a landlord in Delco. Glad to see more people interested. I help run the local REIA for Delco, you should check it out.

If you have any questions, or if I can help somehow, feel free to drop me a line. 

http://www.meetup.com/delcopropertyinvestors-pa/ev...

I think any deal is better than no deal. 

If this is one of your first flips, it will give you experience so you will know what works next time.

1- Do you think they are capable of doing all the work? Have a clear definition on what jobs they can sub. Very seldomly a general contractor is financially efficient doing roofing, siding, Windows, pairing.

2- What happens if you decide to fire them mid way thru the job? Do they walk away with nothing or are they going to force you into paying retail price? I would only go for very conservative options (like ou pay them 8.75/h for 30 hours a week each) and I would put that in a contract. Don't underestimate the possibility of the partnership working. And the contractor can always put a mechanics lien on your house while you don't have any leverage.

4- if he wants you to front all the money, it is likely they are broke/bad credit. Ask them how the they are going to survive while the work is being done. Put it on writing you will not do any "cash advances".

5- I've done two deals like the this. One was the best ever deal for a contractor. He got paid 19k more than if I had paid retail. I didn't mind, I was on vacation for that month and he did everything. The second one was hard to sell and he got surper frustrated. He wanted cash and in the end I ended up converting it to a rental. I think I paid I'm fairly, but he sill thinks he left money on table.