All Forum Posts by: Ralph Soles

Thanks for organizing this and sounds like an interesting. Count me in.

Well, there are many way to do it. It all depends on two things. How much capital you can get your hands on (to be serious to start average amount is about $10,000 before you see the loan officer) and how much experience you have as a real estate investor. Ok, Let start from the beginning. There is many ways to get money. earn it, conventional loan, private lender or hard money lender this is the traditional side, then there the creative side. the creative side is owner finance, lease to own, partners, and etc. I have a better idea.

well, I just had another idea. I know how you can get the money you need and get some real estate experience at the same time. That is, contact an real estate agent and he will lead you in the right direction. I mean, work with them as a mentor and student during the summer. take your test, then by the fall you will be selling houses. When you do that, you will get the experience you need and earn the down payment or the total purchase price of a house.

P.S. If you see or know people on TV that tell you that they can buy houses with no money down. Please look around for any Leprechaun or other stories they will tell you. What they say is no true, just salespeople talking.

Anyway, tell me later how it goes

Best Wishes

@Michael C. Welcome to BP

Multi family property are pretty tricky to work with. the best thing to do is accountant and an Attorney. taxes change all the time, they would know the tax rate best, they might even have your best interest at heart. try not to do the legal paperwork yourself there is a lot of legal jargon to know, easy to make a mistake with it.

Best of luck with it

@Jeremiah Damiron Welcome to BP

It is my understanding with FHA and VA loans you have to make your property for the loan your primary resident. That means you can not live any where else during this time. The time period for this is one and half years to two years. My suggestion is this, stay in the home for the period of time, fix it up to market standards, and then sell it for a profit. With the extra cash you can buy your next home with your own money, or have a private investor, or a hard money lender to help. Worst comes to worst, find a classmate partner and go into a duplex or something together. It might even be cheaper than rent for both of you. unless you are a home owner, to me FHA has too many rules for investors, so I try to avoid them. If you are thinking of beating the system by renting out the property, but tell FHA your leaving there. They do check, and they have seen this trick before, there are no fool. I have had friends that have tried.

Best of luck with the situation

Welcome to BP @Caleb Matteis

My suggestion is yes, why? so that you can see, learn about how a open house really works.

Find a notebook somewhere and write down all the questions you might have for the agent before you meet with them. Maybe do a dry run of what it might be like if you are going to buy the house but even if you don't even really buy it. As far as I know open houses don't cost anything to go, and maybe they will even have answers to your future questions and give you cookies for your troubles. Just enjoy yourself. Worst comes to worst, you might even find a way to buy it and start your way to financial independence. Who knows?

@Brett Johnston To be honest with you, I use to do a lot of construction and flipping homes in the past and then I stopped because of the market.

Now that I am in New York, NY, I am getting back into it , but I am doing it slowly as I set up a real estate and property management company.

Its like I am getting everything ready before I start , in a few months. Believe me you don't want to set things up after the headaches begin. I don't want to make the same mistakes I made before, so I am going to do it right this time, from the lesson I have learned in the pass.

I believe the right way of doing it, is to learn from others (as from a Mentor), either through doing your own research (Books and CD's) learning from the accomplishment or failures of others. This comes from history and others experience.

Secondly, set up a budget(s) and a plan or goal to where you want to go, and everyday work on the goal(s) when you have the time.

Third, set up connection through Bigger Pockets and else where such as a local REIA in your area. Talking with them, you will find out what your market should be and they might even help you fund your next project.

As for your questions: small family resident in major NY,NY is far and fair between, most of the families have the property all bought up unless you have a lot of money to invest in the beginning. Where I live, there is just multifamily dwelling available. However, the farther away you get from the major city, there are great opportunities available to look at.

Do your self a favor, stay small and local until you can really get a handle on what you are getting into. There is a lot of investor con-games out there. I like to be able to get into properties that I have control over even if it is run by a management company. (hiring / firing) I don't prefer to drive 200 miles to solve a problem that can only take 5 - 15 minutes to fix.

Best wishes for you and what ever you decide.

Welcome @Brett Johnston to Bigger Pockets

Welcome to BP @BryanNevin.

I am new to area also, but research show to me that their is a lot of oppurtunities in NY and NJ..

@Michael Slabitcher Welcome to BP

What kind of budget should I set up for this?