All Forum Posts by: Ryan Horne

@Dan Mahoney Plot twist. I am recently married. Most of my friends are in Smyrna and I actually like the area. My current best case scenarios in my mind are to buy a low priced townhome or condo in the area using an FHA loan. Take advantage of the 203k loan as well and update the home. Live there for a few years then sell or rent depending on the numbers.

I would really love to purchase a small multi family and live in one of the units, but multi families are few and far between in my target area.

I am not against moving outside of Smyrna, but I don't really want to get any further outside of the perimeter and I also don't want to live in an unsafe area just to save a few bucks. Got a lot of thinking to do over the next few months its seems.

Hi @Micki Larkin thanks for the insight. You are right about Smyrna in a sense. Schools aren't great (but not something I will have to worry about for several years) and there are definitely some pockets that are less desirable than others. But there are some really nice pockets of Smyrna as well and I like its proximity to Atlanta. I lived in the Kennesaw/Acworth are for 4 years while I was in college there and although it is a nice area to live in, it is a pretty good haul to Atlanta and seems to be a little investor unfriendly (atleast from the small amount of research I have done) .

As far as my investing goals go the first thing I want to do is to buy a personal residence that I could eventually turn into a buy and hold property when I am ready to move on. After that I want to purchase buy and hold properties and would love to try out an airbnb if I can find a place in a good location. Once I have a few buy and holds I would love to try to flip a house or two per year to help fund additional purchases. Obviously a lot of this is way down the road but my main investing goal would be buy and hold for long term wealth.

Thanks for the advice @Dan Mahoney will definitely check that out. Right now I am definitely interested in buy and hold rentals and short term rentals have also piqued my interest. My first step is to buy a home for myself first which could eventually turn into a rental property and then work into buy and hold properties with SFH and small multi families. Ultimately I would like to do some flips to help fund the purchase of some of the buy and hold properties but that is way down the road for me at this point. I'm still in the learning phase and looking to grasp as much info as possible!

You seem to be correct on this @Dan Mahoney and that is something I have noticed as well. There are parts of this are that come close to bordering Buckhead and Ga Tech that are super nice but some parts that I have driven through are pretty sketchy. Very interesting area. Just out of curiosity how are you drawing conclusions on where to look? I assume you may have enough experience that you just know which parts of the city are worth looking at but I don't quite have a grasp of the area like that. Any suggestions or just get to driving?

What are y'all's thoughts on this zip code? I live within 5 miles of the general area off of Atlanta road in Smyrna currently. I've ridden around a bit in the area and it seems to be hit or miss but from what I've seen there looks to be some growth in the area. Some new buildings that look very nice. Schools are pretty bad in the area according to Zillow, realtor, etc ratings but the home prices seem pretty low for some pretty decent looking homes. When searching homes in the area there seems to be a lot of investor action in the area as a lot of the homes you see on the various sites are renovated. Do y'all see this area continuing to trend in a positive direction? My current lease is up in July and hopefully I will be buying then. Just looking for some thoughts from seasoned investors.

Interesting debate. As someone who is just starting with this and looking to make their first property purchase in the next year or so, it makes sense to me to pay the property off as soon as possible. But that is obviously a very conservative way of doing business and a decision in my part out of fear of a market downturn. I definitely see both sides of the argument but from a pure safety of investment standpoint, the sooner you can pay off the property, the sooner you don't have to worry about some kind of significant downturn in the market that could crush your cash flow potential. At least that's how the debate goes in my head lol. But having the 30 year mortgage to fall back on but doubling your payments so you can pay it off sooner definitely sounds like a smart compromise. 

Question for those who have purchased Condo's, Apartments, etc. When doing your analysis on these types of properties do you typically allot less to Capex/Repair expenses? Seeing as how I assume you would never have the major expense of replacing a roof or maybe even an HVAC system as some high rises may not have individual HVAC units for each apartment it seems you could allot less to this. That would make it seem you would only have to allot for minor fixes here or there. Just curious to get the opinions of others on this. Is there a standard Capex/Repair percentage that you use that I may have missed? I'm a newbie after all...

Very much a newbie but would love to join as well!

@Mike Lambert It seems that you are correct. In doing some research there are some available Airbnb in the College Park area but in looking at their calendars it does not seem that their occupancy levels are at a place where it makes sense for the effort that would need to be expended. On the other hand it does seem that the midtown/downtown areas of Atlanta have quite a few "successful" places. I put successful in quotes b/c I have not done anything more than check reviews and look at the occupancy calendars.

Next step for me is to evaluate homes in those area. There are plenty of small condos available in the 120,000 and below range that theoretically would work. The one caveat being finding a building that is ok with homeowners doing short term rentals. I have a lot more learning and searching to do before this can become a reality for me but the potential to bring in 2x and 3x your mortgage and increasing that cash flow over a more traditional long term rent is intriguing. Another thing is that I would also look to purchase a place that in the instance of any regulations against short term rentals in GA, could still cash flow at least minimally in case of a sudden forced change in strategy. 

Thanks for the info Michaela G. . Do you have the details regarding this meetup group or know where I can find them?