All Forum Posts by: Robert Wodogaza

@Warren West, welcome to RE Investing.  As my fellow investors said, you will get a lot out of the RIREIG meetings that we all attend.  They meet the third Thursday of every month at the Crown Plaza in Warwick.  You can find their web site online.  It has been an invaluable asset to me for all facets of RE Investing and Networking.  I too am a JWU grad and have been in RE Investing for about 7 years now.  RI has a great community of investors/mentors to network with.  I would highly recommend reading books on the subject as well, if you have not yet done so.  Bigger Pockets has some great ones, but there are some really great ones that most seasoned investors would recommend.  You can always IM me for some titles.  So welcome to the Investing market and I look forward to seeing you one day at the meetings.  

@Joseph Murray, welcome to BP.  Sounds like your off to a good start and attending the RIREIG meetings is definitely a step in the right direction, look forward to seeing you there.

I fully agree with @Andrew Johnson and his approach @James Conaway.  At all of my properties we have pest control inspection every year and do 2 applications for insects, one in April and one in October, regardless if we see them or not.  Some insurance companies will not cover insect damage to your building or trees and shrubs if you cannot prove that you had it on a pest control maintenance program.  In some cases like bed bugs, the tenant has to pay for remediation if it started in their unit, but if it spread to other units, or you cannot prove it was them, then you are responsible for it all, and that is different from state to state.  But that is the case here in Rhode Island.

@Shawn Loranger, I am an investor in RI and have seen the market here in RI and Southern MA jump up quite a bit in price. A lot of investors in the area are seeing the same thing and we have discuss it in length at the REI meetings. There are still deals out there, but you have to dig deeper to find them and use resources like Wholesalers, other investors and sources like @Donna Genovese, @Bill Florence and @Jeremy P. have suggested.  I am a "Buy & Hold" investor and I have not found a deal that makes sense number wise for over 8 months.  I have actually started to go outside of my area to places like Indianapolis, IN and Atlanta, GA to invest since you can still buy homes reasonably cheap there and the market has a lot of growth ahead of it.

Don't get discouraged, just find better ways of finding the deals and working different angles and sources.

Welcome to BP @Kendrick Salazar, you've tapped into one of the best resources you could possibly ask for in this business. Good luck with your venture. I would highly recommend joining a Real Estate Investment (REI) like RIREIG here in RI or The Black Diamond group in Worcester, MA. Both are great networking groups and you will learn a lot from them.

@Anthony Butera, welcome to BP.

@David Nguyen, please message me with your contact information.  

Thanks!

@Scott McLeod, can you please message me your contact info as well.  I run into the same issues as Ruth and have been looking to possibly branch out into the Atlanta area.

@Kyle Brodwater, try Water Tech in Rehoboth, MA they have a web site where you can see the sizes of the dumpsters and their very inexpensive.

@Aryelle Collins, I am in total agreement with all of the points that @Alexander Zurn and @Brandon Ingegneri made above, these are all great ways to analyze a market area.  I too am in the same market as both of these gentleman and use the same tactics that they described to learn and understand areas that I am interested in.  I personally also stay on top of reading the news in our state and towns so that I can see where there is talk of development and infrastructure growth.  Most states/towns will push money into areas that they want to develop and revitalize and this is a good sign that that area will become desirable at some point, if it's not already.  

I also track statistics in the towns that I am interested in.  Things like Foreclosure rates, Increases or decreases in property values and sales, or home availability.  These are all signs of the health of a neighborhood.   Google is an amazing tool for finding this information.  As they had mentioned, Zillow has some great tools for tracking the health of areas of interest.  I get weekly neighborhood health updates from Zillow sent right to my email.  The information is out there, you just have to know where to get it.

One last thing, my wife and I have made it a ritual of waking up on Sunday morning, grabbing a coffee at Starbucks and driving all around neighborhoods that we are interested in to see what is happening and talk to residents that live there.  Nothing beats talking to people with "Feet On The Ground" in those areas.  There perspective on their neighborhoods are invaluable.  And more importantly,  I get to spend time with my wife after a long work week in our hectic 9-5 jobs.  

Hope this has helped, and good luck in your endeavors.