All Forum Posts by: Robert Fisher

My wife and I just bought a new personal home - one we can finally house hack!  We're going to sell our current home and use the equity to pay off my student loans (and because we wouldn't come close to even the 1% rule).  Here's our dilemma:

We found water damage on the ceiling as we were painting.  We call a roofer that is a friend of a friend, he comes the next day and "fixes it" at no charge.  We celebrate for about 4 hours until it rains and I got up to the attic to check on it - still leaking.  We get somebody else out to take a look and they recommend at least repair the last 2' of the roof and re-flashing the chimney - about $800.  I go ahead and get a quote on a full replacement - $6,180.  They both seem like a risk to me, but do we roll the dice and go high or low?

We're currently listed at $189,900.  If we do the $800 fix, I'm afraid we turn off buyers because it will be (and look like) a band aid on a roof that has 5-10 years left on it.  Even in our super hot market, I wouldn't surprise me if we had to accept $180,000 because we turned too many people off.  Am I thinking too worst case scenario?  Our agent has suggested biting the bullet, putting on the new roof and raise to list to $192,900.  This obviously handicapped our net to $186,000 before closing costs, even with a full price offer.  We have to spend $6,000 up front, but we still potentially come out ahead of the patch repair route.

We had originally thought to offer a $4,000 credit but are too afraid of the bank not loaning on the house if the roof is leaking.

What would you all do?  Which lesser of two evils is going to let us keep more of our equity in the end?

Paul was awesome.  The episode was overflowing with golden nuggets of info and tactics and strategy - much like episode 279 with Andrew Cushman.  It's one I'll have to listen to again when I'm not in the car so I can take notes.  

Does anybody in the Lynchburg/Central Virginia area know any real estate agents, property managers, contractors, lenders, etc. that either work well with investors or, better yet, are investors themselves?  Looking for agents and lenders with some creativity or at least can follow my line of thought or advise me when I suggest creative financing options, and can see potential where others may not.  Contractors you can leave a job with and know they're going to do what you need done up to a level you want to see.   You all know what I mean, some people that know the deal and don't need any hand holding and might have better ideas about how to do something than what I may be thinking.

Would also be great to find CPAs, attorneys, inspectors and/or appraisers that also invest.

Thanks!

Austin, 

We have an REIA meeting in Lynchburg the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Our current location is at the Stoney Badger.

https://www.meetup.com/Lynchburg-REIA-Real-Estate-...

Originally posted by @Anthony Dooley:

@Robert Fisher you are describing an environment where I personally would not buy. If the numbers don't work, they don't work. Regardless of what others are doing there. There are better markets to invest in, you just have to do the research.

I somewhat misspoke. I guess it would technically be our second deal - our second live-in flip. I say "first deal" because we didn't have the intentions of investing in real estate when we bought this house. We have about $90k equity in our current place and would like to either rent it and use it as a HELOC to fund other investment properties or sell it and use the equity to invest. We need a new place to support our growing family and can't go elsewhere. Once we get out of this place, I probably will need to look elsewhere.

And instead of saying $12k above asking, I should've said 10-15% above asking price within 24 hours of list.  That's not always the case on every house, but we've gotten beaten out on offers 3-4 times now because we've only went over asking price once and only by a couple thousand.

As somebody who is currently looking for their first deal, in a market where you sometimes have to bid $12k over asking price within 24 hours of list, on a house that already seems overpriced for what it is, and still lose... I could use a correction so I can buy in at the dip.

Thanks Mindy!  I was trying to sort the podcast app by most downloaded and couldn't figure it out.  Most interested in single or small multifamily rentals and FI, but there's good stuff in every show.

I’ve got a road trip ahead of me tomorrow and I plan to be BP podcasting for my trip. I’m still fairly new to the podcasts and have only listened to probably 30 or so between the main show and the money show / mostly recent shows. I was wondering what everyone’s favorite episodes are that they’d recommend. Thanks in advance!

Another example of government flexing its overreaching muscle. They don’t care about zoning. They don’t care about perceived risk. They don’t care about the homeowners or guests. They care about the things: tax dollars and lobbyists (which brings its own money). Hotels and motels are losing business to Airbnb and justifiably so. In most cases, you get a much better experience for less money. You win and the home owner wins because you put money in their pocket or toward their mortgage. It’s a win-win. Exchanging private money for private property. Government doesn’t belong in that transaction at all. But big hotels have big money and since they’re losing to Airbnb, they pressure governments to save them. To equate me letting somebody stay in the in law suite, or even my whole house for a weekend, to a hotel is silly. Especially saying “Would you be ok with Holiday Inn knocking down your neighbors house and building a hotel?” Not the same thing. That even close.

I haven't listen to all of them, but 30 minutes into this episode and it's already my favorite.  I can't take notes fast enough to keep up with this guy.  Nuggets of golden all over the place.