All Forum Posts by: Renae Bouchard

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $56,000
Cash invested: $10,000

Pre-foreclosure property redeemed before auction. This home featured a swiss cheese heating system and had been vacant for 5 years. With some sweat equity, donated professional expertise by my father the HVAC tech, and all my weekends the summer of 2023, I plan to pull almost $200k in equity from the house with a mortgage to continue investing and moving my investments further, and should still have about $100k left.

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

The equity and condition of the house. I budgeted close to 100k to fix up this property, but with skillful participation of my father and FOMO all summer, I put less than 10k into this deal. I plan to pull almost $200k in equity from the house with a mortgage to continue investing and moving my investments further, and should still have about $100k left. Not bad for a cash flowing asset.

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

The previous owning family received the pre-foreclosure redemption letter and auction date - reached out to me and they agreed to allow me to redeem it on their behalf and I am renting one side of the house at market value to a family member.

How did you finance this deal?

Private Money, personal funds.

How did you add value to the deal?

Blood, sweat and tears.

What was the outcome?

Hitting my FIRE goal, cash flowing asset, allowing me to feel free to family plan in the way that will allow me to be present for the future.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Plumbing is NOT an underrated skill. Obviously. Learned a lot about how to find leaks in systems and fix burst pipes.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $350,000
Cash invested: $120,000

This was a 2 family with long term tenants. Both units were extremely run down with the same folks living in them for more than 15 years. Our plan to convert an unfinished space to 3 family came to fruition in 2023, and we are working to convert one of the three bedroom units into two 1-bedroom units with lofts, using the high attic space in the original Victorian structure.

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

Purchase price was a steal

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

Partner Mike Cohen found this deal off market and the seller wanted it for what it had been appraised for the prior year.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventionally with Community National Bank

How did you add value to the deal?

Force appreciation from 2 family to 3 to 4. Used the equity to fund the construction every time.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $300,000
Cash invested: $100,000

The purchase and renovation of this original owner 1930's 3-family was purchased with a 1031 Exchange. We updated the electrical and insulation throughout the entire building, renovated the kitchens and bathrooms of two units and rebuilt the exterior rear staircase. This building is centrally located and recent assessment of comps conservatively suggests market value at $500k.

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

1031 forced our timeline to close on a property, we were looking to park our proceeds in as much house with value add potential as possible. This will be a property we own for generations, and the lot has upside potential.

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

Listed in the height of the 2021 RE market, this open house had cars clogging the side roads and driveway. We offered 20k over asking, a cash purchase and 10 day close.

How did you finance this deal?

1031 Exchange and personal funds from a HELOC on another property

How did you add value to the deal?

Property needed maintenance and cosmetics. Red carpeting throughout, which when removed, revealed impeccable hardwoods.
The stuff of dreams. We overhauled the attic apartment which was not livable in its current state and have furnished the unit for traveling professionals. Lot is large enough that we plan to add another unit or two over a garage down the line with equity in the deal.

What was the outcome?

We love the charm of this property and its central location. It will be a home we hold generationally.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

We put a lot of money upfront into this house - we purchased it with cash and refinanced immediately to fund the renovations and pay back the heloc we had. Having a great relationship with a banker is the only way this purchase was able to happen.

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

LA Pete Duval was a nightmare to deal with.

Hello Fellow Investors!! I was running a fairly active REI networking group in the Burlington area prior to the pandemics grand entrance. I have an colleague with a paid zoom account who would likely be happy to host us all. I've hosted on Google Meet a lot over the last few months, and honestly, Zoom is just a much better platform. I'd love to connect with all of you!

Please DM me your contact information and I'll add you to my email list for meetings - and I'll see if @Donal might be available to host us all next Thursday night at 7pm (Thursday, November19th) If not, a google meet would be great and I wouldn't mind putting it together and linking in my other investing group members :)

Renae Bouchard

Welcome Zach! I'm running a fix&flip business here in Burlington. I just started a monthly networking event for investors in the Chittenden area and would love to meet you there! PM me with your email and I'll add you to my email campaign to inform you about our meetings. Next meeting will be on September 16th 6-8pm :)

Thanks for the clarification Hunter! Sorry we weren't able to communicate to everyone for this one, but it is my priority to make this a monthly event so there will be MUCH opportunity to attend in the future! I'm trying to constantly host on the second monday of each month 6-8pm. This last meet up, we were able to gather at one of our investors owner-occupied properties and it was truly ideal compared to trying to communicate over the noise of a bar! Hope to see you all at the next one, planning for August 12th!

Hello Investors!

I just launched a regular monthly networking event in the chittenden county area. We've had a steady 6-9 investors attend in our first two meetings. I'd love to widen our prospects a bit and this thread seems to be the place to do it :)

Our next meeting is scheduled for July 17th 6:30-8:00pm, details will go out in a reminder email so everyone will easily have access to the date, time, and location! Message me on here with your email if you'd be interested in attending any of our events and I'll add you to the email I'm setting up. 

We can build success better when we work together; as I'm prepping to purchase my first multi family this year I'd love to connect with more investors in state! 

Looking forward to hearing from some of you, and meeting you in the future! Cheers!

Renae Bouchard

Vermont Area Real Estate Investors is the facebook page name! I made the event recurring for the first four dates; we'll see how well turn out is :) Looking forward to meeting you!

@Nicholas Relation 

Greetings!

I am looking to start with a bi-weekly investor meet up and see how the turn out is over the first 2 months and restructure accordingly. I am a newer investor in the area and would really value setting up a regular networking/brainstorming event for all of us investors in the Greater Burlington area to get together, network, trade deals, and discuss strategy. I am managing my small businesses renovations, so I have some extra time to plan these sorts of outings :) 

I would love to coordinate our first meeting for Saturday, June 8th at Mad River Distillers at 12:30pm.  I've spoken with the manager there and that seems to be a good time for us to be able to sit in their back table seating and chat over some fine cocktails for as much time as we need! There's no beer at MRD, but we can discuss alternative meeting places further if that's an issue for folks (only requirements would be to avoid live music so we can actually hear each other!).

Who's in? I'll be there on June 8th at 12:30, I look forward to meeting & connecting with you further!

A little about me: I am a newer investor in the area focusing on flipping homes. I am working on my second investment in Chittenden County currently, fourth investment total and am actively seeking more investment opportunities. My partner and I are looking to purchase our first multi-family this summer and become landlords so I am excited to connect with existing investors in the area to learn your thoughts about our market and gain some knowledge about the tenant pool in the area. 

I’ll be running a little late today but I will be there around 4:40, hope to see some of you there!