All Forum Posts by: Ricky Brown

I appreciate that. Do you think I should present this to the developer as a partnering deal instead of just hiring them for the work? If so, would you have some advice about presenting the opportunity? I figure I could show all the other house and values on a parcel map or something and show my ideas for sectioning the land into 3 lots etc...

I had considered the idea before and had thought I could contact the builder of the other homes and have them work with me. 

Thank you for your time and consideration

I know I definitely have a lot to learn. I never planned to start construction or rehabbing this early but I'm working with what I have at the moment. I've considered just flipping the land to a developer, but it seems like I would make more by construction and selling. The land is zoned residential. 

@Jamie DeRossett

Would you know a developer in Central KY that would be interested in working with me on this deal? Or maybe someone that would be able to answer my questions and guide me in the right direction?

If anyone has any other info on BP that I could learn from, I would greatly appreciate the links. You guys are great

Hey BP Community, I know there's many people out there that complain and have the excuse that things don't work in their area and different things like that. I don't want to let excuses stop me from achieving my dream and building wealth so I will overcome this problem one way or another. That being said, I have been searching for cash buyers for my area and no one is able to get me any leads. I have found some lead supppliers that sell buyers and sellers lists from the MLS and they tell me that when they search my county, and the surrounding counties, that there are literally 0 cash buyers in the area for the past 6-9 months. they say they found one when they open the search to over 1 year. My county population is only 19,000. So, i have been finding other ways to build my buyer list for my county and working with my friend, he does his own rehabbing in Hardin county, ky - E-town. We are working on a plan to start wholesaling properties in Hardin county and rehabbing a select few ourselves. He has the konwledge and the ground work, along with some investing capital, and I am running the marketing for the properties and building a buyers list for that area as well. Hardin County has a population of over100,000. I contacted the lead providers and asked about hardin county and they told me the same thing, no cash buyers in that area up to the past 9 months. However, I did find a good list of cash buyers in the Jefferson couty area, Louisville KY, population over 400,000. I can purchase a good list of cash buyers for that area, which is about an hour or less to the north of Hardin county. What i'm wondering is if, maybe, the buyers in that county would be interested in the deals we find in Hardin County since it's not far away. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of situation that could lend me some experience and advice? Any investors here on BP working the Jefferson County, Louisville, Kentucky, area that could give me the local expertise advice about this? Possibly an investor that's here that would be interested in being on my buyer's list for the Hardin County area? Any advice would be great as I'm ready to purchase this list now and hope to have luck with the investors on the list i get. He said he found 2600 cash buyers for about $55 for the list.

@Steve Haight, I am looking into more of the zoning and code laws for the area. The plot of land is 6.06 acres and belonged to my grand-father then my father, now I have the option to get the deed from my father. The land is in the county, outside of the city limits, right off the main highway. Another investor or building company has bought a lot of the plots around this 6 acres and have been putting up new homes since 2008 or earlier and still putting up new homes this year. Recently there has been 2 new duplexes built, 1 home purchased and remodeled for renting, and around 5 new homes built on this road within a .5 mil radius or less. I have not contacted an engineer or anything about the land. I just found out my father was wanting to sell it a few weeks ago. He said he wanted to sell it because he wasn’t going to use it and he noticed all the building going on in the area. I told him that I would like to be the one to buy the deed from him and he has agreed to work with me using a seller financed note or something to deed the property to me so I can use it to work a deal. The land is adjacent to the county road and basically right in the middle of all the new construction going on. The plot is undeveloped and would need utility lines installed for each property, as well as clearing some trees and leveling some land. I contacted some local construction companies over the weekend and found out that they only do commercial construction. I asked them for a referral to a residential builder and still awaiting their reply. I did find the builder that completed a few of the houses previously mentioned. I searched their business today and found their contact info and will be getting in touch with them to determine what services they offer and their price. I also spent the weekend researching plans and more comps for the area. What I would like to do is get the deed and control the land. Then, I would find a developer to work the land and build the homes. I would like to section the land into 3 plots with approx. 3 acres on each plot, give or take some depending on the property lines and whether I can put any duplexes or if I stick to just SF homes. With the 3 plots, I would have to get a construction loan for the first home to be built and figure out how I can work with the lender to use the rest of the land as collateral or something. I plan to sell the home to repay the loan and use the profits to start the construction for the next house and keep rolling the profits to the next until all 3 plots were finished. Alternatively, if there’s a better way to obtain the financing and getting the houses built faster, like all 3 at the same time, then I would consider that route. I was thinking that I could hire the developer/builder to do the work or maybe partner with them and have them build the homes and we split the profits somehow at closing. Many ideas going through my head and I’m looking for all the pieces of the puzzle to put it together right and get started. I am looking for funding and builders with price estimates for the project and any advice and knowledge on the subject so I can make the right decision and profit the most from the land and opportunity. I have not contacted anyone about the land to inquire about its best use. Who would you recommend I contact for that kind of service? Would the builder know what would be the best usage or would that be like asking the barber if I need a haircut? My area, Marion County, Kentucky, has only 19,000 population and we don’t have many services like larger areas. Maybe I can find someone out of town that would be a good choice. Or may be best to stay local for better pricing? Not sure… Thank you in advance for taking time to read my post and helping me with my goals. Much appreciation and gratitude. I look forward to being able to return the favor by paying it forward to others in need of assistance.

I have a potential deal with a 6 acre lot and wanting to learn more about getting new homes built on the land. There have been several new homes built on that road in the past 5 years. There are some nice homes and duplexes being built back to back and I'm thinking that this 6 acres would be great to do the same with. The houses built in that area are valued from $117k for a 1100sqft home on .8 acre lot up to around $170k for a 1800sqft home on 3.4 acres. 

I was thinking that I could divide the land into 2-5 lots with over an acre each and build homes to match the other built on the street so they would price around the same. I know there is a lot that goes into development and new construction, so I'm looking for any knowledge or advice on the subject before I get started. I'm looking into the construction companies that built the other homes and other local companies to see how they price their new construction projects. I need to learn more about getting the right permits and getting utilities on the land. The land is already zoned residential, but I'm not sure about how to get it divided into different lots. Should I consider building first then dividing the plots or dividing the plots first then building on each one at a time? I was wondering how financing would work best as well, whether the land should be divided up and the other plots used as collateral for the new construction loan. 

I downloaded the Diary of a New Construction Project and going to start reading it tonight. If anyone has any advice and direction to help me education myself on this topic, i would be extremely grateful. I don't have experience in this, but I'm eager to learn and would like to take this opportunity and make a good deal from it. 

thanks Jeff. I like those simple and effective tips.

@Jonathan Pliszka You must be soaking about Trey Abel. I knew him in school and saw that he has become an agent like his grandfather, if I'm thinking correctly. Hrs also a firefighter, yea small town, practically know everyone or at least know of them. I'll contact him and see what we can accomplish. 

I'm looking at a property now that I may be able to get through seller financing. It's out in gravel switch but it doesn't need much work, just mostly cleaning and some drywall patching. This could be my first deal! I'm excited and keep reminding myself not to get emotional and think logical so I don't get into something that doesn't cash flow positively. Wish me luck.

Thanks again BP friends. 

Thanks for the feedback. No, i havent had much experience wholesaling other than the marketing I'm doing in my area. I figured starting with wholesaling would be a good idea for me since I am starting and not able to put up a lot of capital for a deal. I honestly didn't consider finding deals from a wholesaler. Not sure why i didn't think about that stratgey, but i like it. I started looking around the lexington area and found more coverage with systems for comps and finding property information. Prices are definitely a bit higher, but so is the rental rates. I will be doing a lot more research into the area to find out exactly where and how I am going to start getting rentals for that area. I know there will be more competition in the larger area. Any advice about finding a good wholesaler/bird dog in specific areas? I think I will place an ad on CraigsList to start and see who bites. maybe i could locate someone here on BP. thanks again for the time

Hey BP friends. I’m looking for some advice and maybe someone to work with. I got into REI last year in January and been doing a lot of studying and learning while I work to better my credit and financial situation. I’ve created a plan to do wholesaling and earn some capital to start investing in rentals. However, I’m from a really small town and feel like wholesaling would be better and easier in a different market. I haven’t had a lot of luck finding buyers to market deals to and wondering if I should wholesale elsewhere. I’ve used lead generation services, such as Zbuyer, ListSource, RealtyStore, and a few others with very little luck. ListSource really couldn’t even give me a list after a chose a criteria; basically all I could choose was to buy a list of people that own property in my county. I’ve also tried using different services like Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin for property info and, if they actually have some info in my county (Marion Co. KY), it’s completely inaccurate. I’ve also used local Realtor sites, like LBAR.com (Lexington Bluegrass Associated Realtors) and Rector-Hayden Realtors and found that they don’t have data for my area either. I’m not saying that REI doesn’t work in my county, but I’m having to figure out different methods to get the information I’m seeking since these options are not really helpful. I’m having trouble connecting with a Realtor for help with MLS access as well. Maybe it’s my inexperience. Anyway, I’m hoping to get some advice or tips, preferably from investors in my area of central KY that can understand my situation a bit, and help me figure out what to do to get my first deal under my belt. I’m using public records more than anything for comps, values, and leads. I know of some properties on the market for a while that would make good rentals. One particular house is listed for $49,900 and the comps on that street (that I pulled from county PVA site) show similar homes are around $39,500. I used the rental analysis tool on BP and ran the numbers using best estimates and data I collected. I found that rent for the area is between $500-$600 a month and could possibly be more if the house was updated nicely. It’s currently rented to a tenant for $500/mo and that’s what I used in the analysis. Anyway, if I got the property at the overpriced $49k with 20%down and estimated $5k in updates/repairs, the ROI showed something like 8.5%. But, if I got accepted at just $40k, the ROI is around 14%, which I figure is pretty good. My problem right now is financing. It’s been listed with the agent since like 2013 sometime so I’m pretty sure the owner would accept an offer around $40k but I’m not able to get a loan at the moment and the total cost came out to be around $14k with everything calculated. Any advice about how I could fund this deal, or is it even a deal worth working on? Also, I’m doing marketing with a little success in my area. It’s tedious to get a good list built right now using manual research through public records, but I have programmer friend working on a tool to scrape the public record sites to help me speed up the process. I’ve sent out letters to some absentee owners and foreclosure cases, but have yet to get a response. Does anyone have any advice about marketing in small counties or should I consider doing a virtual wholesaling business in a different market? Maybe I could get some advice about finding a partner on the ground to work with in a better market. I could do the marketing and generate seller leads and work with someone who can go to the property, meet the seller, and build a cash buyers list. Should I work wholesaling with a partner in a different market or keep working on marketing in my area? Any advice on funding rental property deals. Thanks for any help and advice.

Hi biggerpockets friends. I'm new to investing and trying to learn and do as much as i can to get into the game and get my first deal under my belt. I've been studying hard and working on implementing the techniques and strategies that I've learned. I'm doing a lot of research and finding properties that are being foreclosed on, been foreclosed on, vacant, FSBO, and some that need some work but are listed pretty low. I'm looking to connect with a few good people to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong or how to proceed into the next phase to actually get a deal under contract.

I'm really studying hard and figuring out how to analyze the deals to see if they are even worth it. I'm learning a lot from the different articles and poddcast found in biggerpockets, however, i feel like there's something im missing. I'm willing to take advice/orders and work to learn. I would love to work hard for a good investor just so i can get my feet wet and start doing my own deals.

I guess what I'm really on here looking for is just a little advice to get me through this 'sticking point' or whatever it is that has kept me from getting my first real estate deal going. would anyone be willing to help me with some advice, maybe an analysis of some properties to look at so i can get a bit more familiar on what to look for and whats a good deal and whats not. I am willing to help out in return for anything i receive. i learn fast and will do research or anything that will help another out and teach me something in the process.

I see all these properties that could be potential deals but i'm not sure how to advance and get the necessary funding or whatever i need to get the deals signed up. maybe i need to focus on finding buyers that will buy from me when i have something. Any help would be greatly appreciated by this eager newbie investor. and thank you to anyone that is taking time to read this and consider helping me. i know time and energy is valuable so i feel in your debt already.