All Forum Posts by: Ryan Detig

@Mary Smith double check with your lender but I am pretty positive that the HELOC loan has nothing to do with the property being your primary residence. The loan is secured by a physical property you own. Whether you live there or not should not matter to the bank. I would also ready the docs you got when you did the paperwork for the HELOC. It should specify that info.

@Aaron Ray  Well done getting started this early.  I am also an engineer but did not get started for 7 years out of college.  To answer your questions, I think the top 3 things you need to do are as follows.

1. Get educated.  Read all you can about the type of real estate investing you want to do.  Learn the rental market in your area. For 6 months I looked online at rentals that came on the market and put them in a spreadsheet so I could reference their location, size, and cost later when I wanted to see how much a house would rent for.

2. Build a network.  Find a local real estate investment group and attend regularly.  Build relationships with the people that are doing what you want to do and build relationships with wholesalers.  Wholesalers never have enough buyers so make sure you are specific as to what you want to buy and let them know that. 

3. Get your financing in place ahead of time.  Talk to banks and get pre approved so your wholesaler will know you are serious.

4.  Just do it.  Don't get caught in analysis paralysis.  Do your research, set a educated minimum requirement for a deal and when that first one comes along buy it and be ready to learn more.  

Let me know if you have any other questions and I will be more than willing to help.  Also I will shamelessly plug my recent post about what I have done in my first 8 months here as there are other tips in that and hopefully it will help encourage you to get started.  

@Kevin Chiu  A live in flip is where you purchase a property that needs work done, live in the property, and slowly (or quickly) complete the work that needs done so that after a period of time you can sell the property for a profit.  There are no tenants involved in a "Live-in" flip because you live in it.  If it is a duplex, then there would be another tenant and that is a different story and is called house hacking.  

@Kevin Wiley  Obviously I don't know your entire situation but I personally think that if you have a ok or well paying job it is probably worth your time to have the wholesaler do what he is good at and you do what you are good at even if the wholesaler makes 2-5K on each deal he sells you.  If you build a good relationship with him/her you can tell them what you are looking for and they can go work for you.  If you have a good amount of capital and a significant amount of time, marketing is not bad but teaming up with a wholesaler that is established is not a bad idea.  Just for reference I have purchased 3 properties from the same  wholesaler, @James Gallen and have been very pleased. 

Sorry I don't know anyone in the Tampa area.

@Ben Wilkins @Janel F.  Ben, I did not think about getting all the paper with your bank done ahead of time.  That is good thinking.  Any idea what the cash-out turn around might be if all the paperwork is ready to go?  I had a situation where my realtor brought me a home-run flip opportunity on a Friday that had to be closed by the next Friday so it would not fall apart.  Do you think the banks could move that fast if all of the up front paperwork and documentation were in place?

@Michael W. A couple concerns I have with what you are asking.  1. A commercial property will not qualify for a 30yr mortgage.  Or if they do please let me know what bank because normal large commercial loans balloon in 7-15 years and do NOT have fixed interest rates.  Overall your logic works really well for residential real estate because the turn-around time for repairs is much shorter (my current hard money loan flip was on the market within 2 months of purchase).  I don't think that it is safe to use standard hard money loans (not sure if you can even get them) for long term commercial flips as you are describing above.  Also, I would make sure you have a good commercial real estate investor with experience as your partner/mentor to make sure you are on the right path and following all of the crazy CA laws.  A 50K rental house mistake is way easier to come back from than a 800K commercial mistake that bankrupts you for years.  Please be careful and make sure you have the right people on your team before moving forward.  

@Janel F. Great post. I think you need to look at the advantage of purchasing a property with cash. If you are wanting to use "cash buyer" as your advantage and close on a property within 10days and get it below market, you have to have your financing in line ahead of time. Cash out refi or HELOC take 2 -4 weeks to set up. What if a great deal comes along that you can get for cheap because you have cash? You won't have the cash and then have to miss out on that deal. I think a good thing to do is 3-6 months before you are ready to purchase, do the cash out refi or HELOC so that you are ready to close in 7-10 days when your realtor brings you that great deal.

@Claudia R.  Check out this link.  It has good info regarding General Liability insurance.  Click here

@Mason English  No problem.  Just let me know. 

@Tracey G.  I have recently purchased a rented triplex.  I had a very good seller and she was super helpful in letting me know what bills needed paid and giving me previous invoices for my records.  One thing that I think you need to do is have the seller provide you the lease and a signed estoppel agreement from each tenant.  The estoppel agreement basically has the tenant agree in writing with the owner as to their current lease terms.  This can help avoid future "No, the deposit was this amount" type of conversations.   The link below is what I used. 

 Estoppel Agreement