All Forum Posts by: Christopher B.

I just agreed to buy 4 houses for $250k. The closing date was set to 45 days out. It was a great deal, I'll flip 2 and keep 2 as rentals. I only have 1 issue. I only have half the capital needed to close the deal right now. I have a house on the market that I just dropped the price too get a quick offer, I am confident I will have a contract on it and will close shortly after the set closing date for the 4 homes but I will need a bridge loan. I can get the capital as I've already had an investor friend offer to purchase 1 of the houses sigh unseen for a fair price and he would bring his POF's to close the deal. I will do this to make the deal happen, no doubt, but I want to look into all my options and try to take this deal down myself without giving up the farm to do so. I've done some searches here at BP and online and will continue searching/calling but wanted to ask if anyone knows of a good option (reference) for a hard money lender or bridge loan?

I worked as an agent for a large mgt. company here in TN and received about 10%-15% of 1 months rent , sometimes a bit more or less depending on the length of lease term and concessions given to the tenant. There were other bonuses tied to the performance of our team. James is correct that you can expect to pay 1 months rent plus 10% if you're paying a mgmt. company to manager your apartment building.

@Joe Stafford Congrats and awesome #'s! You said it was a "lucky scenario" but you definitely created your own luck by putting yourself in a position to take advantage of an opportunity. I hope I have some "luck" like that soon.

I installed Allure in the kitchen of my rental and it has held-up very well the last 3.5yrs. This includes a large dishwasher leak when one of the valves broke and through a pet. It's not high end by any means but I feel it looks better than linoleum. My 2 cents.

@Michael Jobe Us Vols are the best, congrats on getting a good one. Thank you for the offer, she know any good plumbers? I actually just fired my plumber the other day and haven't hired a new yet.

@Michael Jobe Congrats on the first deal, you know what they say, be consistent and persistent. Have you considered working with investors in your area? Most agents don't understand how investors operate and don't see the tremendous opportunity by working with an investor. Just a thought. Good luck to you.

@Brennan Burke No problem, glad I could help.

@Account Closed Thanks. Rinse and repeat is exactly what I am looking to do moving forward. I am working in a flip now and have a new investor so I hope to do another deal like that later this year, will posted rails here. $30k/month in passive in one would be fantastic, my right now is to get to $6k and will reevaluate then.

@Brennan Burke first off welcome to BP, there is an ocean of information at your fingertips. I found my foreclosure through the MLS, I used an agent but she wasn't worth much., so I ended up doing all the research myself. I found a few properties I liked, ran the #'s and decided what I'd be willing to pay for them and then kept an eye on them.

@Sam B. I only have the one duplex still. I only had access to the money for that one deal and then got out of real estate for 2yrs while I finish graduating, etc. I am currently finishing-up a flip house and will share the details once I close on the sale, it should turn-out pretty well.

@Bill S. thanks, it was and still is a great learning experience, from rehab to management. The original intent was to have my parents co-sign but we ran into some issues there. I worked seasonally in my brothers business while in college My parents had to get the loan in their name, I refinanced it under mine in 2012. I was pretty upset about this at the time but it was a lesson learned because I just made assumptions that things would work a certain way and charged into it. Fortunately it did but looking back the risk was even greater than what I thought it was at the time.

In 2010 as a junior in college I ran into an old friend who inspired me to buy a multifamily property. He had recently done a deal for a duplex with his parents and was living in one side for a couple hundred bucks a month while managing the other side. I thought this was a pretty smart idea on his part and after some contemplation came-up with the grand idea of buying my own duplex but with the other side paying ALL of my expenses and hopefully more.

There was a few problems with this though:

1. I knew little about real estate outside of the 3-4 books I'd read

2. I knew nobody that had any knowledge of rentals

3. I had no money, not even a job (college rocked)

Oh well, I pressed forward. My plan was to buy a REO for cash, remodel the property and use the gained equity as my down payment so I didn't have to come-up with 20%. I convinced some family members to loan me $100k to buy and remodel a property. I purchased a duplex for $70k cash and spent $35k on the rehab for a total investment of $105k. The property appraised for $142k, so I then refinanced the property and repaid my family members in full.

In the end nobody spent any money out of pocket and I created about $37,000 in free equity, $2K in cash reserves because we didn't refinance for about 4-months, and a free place to live for myself. Though I'll always be proud of this deal because it's what got me started the property will never be a cash cow. I am currently renting one side for $675 and will rent my side (yep, still live here) for around $900-$1000 per month when I move-out later this year. It should cash flow around $300/month when I rent both sides which I am satisfied with since I knew little about valuing a rental property and estimating cash flows at the time.

My takeaways?

- I bought during a huge down cycle which had a lot to do in me buying a cash flowing property, more and better due diligence is necessary

- Accepting a full-time summer internship and taking 6hrs of summer classes will undergoing a major remodel on a 2700 sq./ft property is absolutely brutal, don't ever do this.

-Never buy a house made of block and/or with a concrete pad

-This works and it's going to change my life

Thoughts?

You have some good points but I disagree with #10. Living next to your tenants, if you manage the situation properly, is a good way to get started in landlording, at least from my personal experience because that is exactly how I have gotten started. Being close to the rental allows you to keep an eye on things and reduces time spent on any maintenance/repairs you must go do. Also living next door to your tenants gives you a little more freedom in selecting tenants. I've had fantastic tenants, the kind that offer to pay me more rent and have handed me money for repairs I did on the water heater. Living next door or not, if you screen your tenants well then you will come out on top more often than not. Of course this just my opinions based on the small sample size of my 4 short years of landlording.