All Forum Posts by: Ryan Detzel

There is a good deal on a short sale in a localish large (300+ units) summer only rental spot. It's listed for $20k less than all the others for sale and the sellers agent said the bank previously accepted this so they would again (buy dropped out). We've been there a lot because friends of ours have a place there so we're thinking of buying this place, spending the extra $20k to really fix it up nice inside and try to rent it out. Since it's in a complex the condo fees take care of everything except Internet, so that's one less thing to worry about. We basically would just be in charge of renting and cleaning. I ran the numbers and to break even we have to rent it for $1800/week (normal is $1700-2100) for eight weeks a year (July/Aug) and anything after that would be cash flow. The place is open for six months out of the year but from our research (friends that live there) it only really rents during the hot months so we're thinking we might be able to charge 1/2 or less for the other months just to get some extra income. I'm having a hard time determining if that break even point is good or not, even if we miss one major week (Jul/Aug) I would hope we could make it up on the other months but I'm just not sure as the data is sparse because most people rent through the complexes rental pool so we can't find vacancy information. 

The complex offers a rental pool and they manage everything but they take 30% off the top, with those numbers it's hard to make it work since it would have to rent for ~10 weeks instead of eight just to break even and looking over their site it appears they have 25 units for rent right now. They charge $2100/week, we'd undercut that on rental sites at $1800.

Thoughts? Are we overlooking something? Thanks

Our story.

We're high salaried employees. We have excellent credit. We have zero debt except mortgages. We currently own two homes with mortgages ~$700k that we don't want to part with. We have $100k we're willing to start investing with, ideally we only use half of that on a cheaper place but we're in the Boston area so it might not be easy. We might expand our search out to western Ma or even NH for cheaper places. I've rehabbed three of my own homes and two others so I'm very comfortable doing most renovations myself. I would like to start building some passive income so I've been looking at multi-families but I'm not opposed to a single family or even a flip if the numbers work. 

Given this information, what kind of advice can you give me on where to focus/start? I really want to buy multi-familes as I feel the rental income will give me the best opportunity to continually loan and buy and grow. My ideal situation would be to buy a two family that needs work, do it myself (3-4 months) and then have a cash flow place.

I've been looking more into this. We need FHA for this to work in our area since prices are high but there are properties that would cash flow. The ideal situation would be to buy a triplex, haver her move in one side so it's owner occupied and then rent out the other two. Hopefully the rents from the other two cover hers as well.

How would I find out for sure if I can do an FHA loan if she's not on the note but on the deed? I have 800+ credit, she probably has 600ish so ideally I'm the only one on the note.

I'm not the type of person to do door knocking but I'd do direct mail or Internet marketing. A quick check on Facebook shows I could target ~200,000 people 10 miles around me, age 24-65 who own a home. I wonder if that works, has anyone tried Facebook advertising?

I'm in MA and I've been scanning the MLS for a month now and there is not that much around me that I feel is a good flip. Now, maybe I don't know what to look for but it seems most houses are way too expensive so even if I got it for a good deal it would be hard to put money in and still make money. The market is so seller centric right now any low ball offer would be laughed away. Am I missing something, should I be looking elsewhere for deals?

Not much, we did FHA (5%) and we've only been here for three years. We might be able to refinance but our rate is so low the breakeven point would probably be 15 years so it doesn't seem worth it. Using the HELOC 90% rule we could get like $3k unless we got the house to appraise for more which is possible but not sure we want to pay to find out.

 Does the rehab loan allow you to take out more to fix the house up too? So we would only need 10% of the cost + repairs?

 I could but my wife wont move...so, not easily. We need to move my mother out soon so I was looking for a creative way to get a MF while having her the "owner" while we pay for it. Still researching that one. I might have to go north to find deals, I'm no opposed to that but local would be better.

I want to try a flip first to see if A) I can handle the time commitment and B) is it a good way to raise funds for future investment properties. My question is what's the best way to get a loan without the 20% down?

• We currently own our house so this would be a second home
• We have credit scores in the 800's
• We make ~$250k/year

We have (or better yet, my wife wont let me) spend that much on a downpayment so I need to get creative.

Do I have any options or should I save/convince her to risk some money on this?

So it would be easier for us to just own it and collect rent from her and another tenant? The benefits of owner occupied would not outweigh the hassle I'm guessing?

Also, would this be a better plan than renting, basically giving her $600/m to help her pay the rent which just seems like a bad idea to me.