All Forum Posts by: Roberto Sembiante

Hey Andrea! 

First of all welcome to the BiggerPockets Community! Secondly it all depends on what your end goal is and how fast you desire to go through "crawl, walk, run" phrase we are all so used to hearing. You can become financially free using both methods, it just depends on what you would like as an end goal. If you do decide to go commercial, it would be quite the jump from the crawl phase of SF real estate. For that I would suggest to find someone who is already in the space and provide some form of value to them. Doing this with the mindset that you can go into a deal with them once you have the capital can be a sure road to success in that space. Good luck!

@Mel Volland Congratulations! Goes to show that sometimes stopping and stepping back to reassess your situation can make all the difference.

Hey BiggerPockets Community!

I have been browsing Instagram a lot lately diving into real estate investor accounts as we do sometimes and a question came to mind. What kind of content do the members of BiggerPockets look for on Instagram? Feel free to let the community know here!

Cheers!

Hey and welcome! MeetUp is a great way to network in the Norfolk area for low cost, or if you do not mind paying an fee, the Tidewater Real Estate Investors Group is a great way to go. There are many people who are more than willing to lend some of their time and have a constructive conversation with you because that is how many people get started. Also, let people you know what you are up to and what your intentions are. The more people you can connect with the better! Please feel free to message me with anything you need and I'll try steer you the right way.

Thank you!

Originally the plan was to do room by room, however finding a management company that wanted to take that on was on the cards for me. Since managing the property is not my passion I give the decisions on how the property should be rented out to the people who know what they are doing. In this case @Patti Robertson from PMI Virginia has been a massive help.

It went well for me, just needed to figure out all of the positions of people in the city and who to call for what. What also made it easy for me was having them tell me exactly what they needed and solving the problems that way.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Norfolk.

Purchase price: $307,500
Cash invested: $3,695

6 Bedroom, 5 Bathroom Renovated Single Family Home.

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

I wanted to experiment in the college rental scene in Norfolk near Old Dominion University. I figured since students like to live in a house with all of their friends this would suffice well.

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

I found it driving and saw that it was on the market for 120 days, so I negotiated it from 320,000 to 307,500

How did you finance this deal?

VA Loan 0% Down

Lessons learned? Challenges?

No one found out that there was no CO for the property. I left for deployment a couple weeks after closing and found out when trying to hand it over to the property management agency. That left me with the property and no renters for my 6 month deployment. I learned all of the ins and outs when it comes to the City of Norfolk and getting a CO.

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

Sherry Reid of TowneBank. The best lender you can ever ask for, highly recommend!

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment in Norfolk.

Purchase price: $102,000
Cash invested: $25,600

First rental in which I learned so much from, the hard way. Invested too much in the rehab that was not necessary. Learned a lot of lessons when it comes to analyzing properties, working with contractors, property managers and leveraging money.

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

First time buying real estate, took my brokers word that it was a good deal to start with.

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

My broker found it for me and did the negotiating.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional Investment Loan at 4.8%

What was the outcome?

I learned more lessons than I could imagine, as most people do when they dive in.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Do not take peoples word for something, do your due diligence, do not overdo rehabs and leverage your capital wisely.

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

Jeffery Depriest (Broker in Virginia) from Prodigy Realty. Powerhouse of an agent who knows what he is doing and will get the job done.

View report

*This link comes directly from our calculators, based on information input by the member who posted.

Hey guys, 

Having a bit of trouble with an analysis. I am in the Military and have an upcoming deployment sometime around October-November timeframe. 100% financed using a VA loan. This property is a large 2700sqft 6 bedroom 5 bath. I am wanting to do a room by room rental on it because it is a mile away from the biggest University in the area. The average for a college student there is $750 with no utilities. I would aim to charge $850 a room including utilities and a cleaning service to come in biweekly to keep issues with tenants. I would've hoped for a group of people to want to rent together before the year started but I did not get the "deal" in time. This brings me to the issue with finding a PM that rents room by room if they cannot find a group of tenants for rent. The taxes are low because of an incentive for people to restore historical properties. The property was just fully renovated and seems like a no brainer but i know there has to be an underlying reason why. Any help would be great. Thank you.