All Forum Posts by: Sam Khoshnavaz

Hello BP Community! I am excited to announce that I have finally purchased my first ever deal! This project is going to a fix and flip. It is a complete gut rehab, getting everything brand new from plumbing, electrical, hvac, to everything in between!

I am currently at the end of the demolition for the property and am starting to look for constrution insurance policies for the building. I was wondering if you guys have any advise for how I should go about getting insurance for the construction phase of the property and any referrals for the St. Louis MO market?

Hey Shankar,

I currently live in San Diego and have lived in SD for the last 6 years. However, I'm moving back home to Saint Louis to start off my RE investing career where it's much cheaper and where I have an competitivadvantage.

with that being said, I would really consider what you have to gain vs what you have to lose form both those options you are pursuing. If i was in your situation, I would go after a small multi-family (anywhere between 2-4 units) to house hack.  I know it's hard to find 4plexes in San Diego within the 600-650k range but if you can adjust your budget a little bit, or get creative with your strategy, a 4plex would be a great way to start investing. Living in one unit and renting out the other three can be a great way to really minimize your mortgage per month. And if the unit you live in has an extra bedroom and you don't mind sharing a living space, you can rent that bedroom out and be possibly evening cashflowing! However, I think the most important part (and the part that has persuaded me to move back to STL) of investing in your backyard or better yet, househacking, is that you get to really learn what it takes to manage not only a property, but people too. This is an important skillset to have, specially in RE!

That can also work with a triplex/duplex/ if you really do your research! 

If you decide to go out of state, let me know if you ever consider St. Louis! OOS investing can be really great too. 

Hello BP community:

I'm considering purchasing my first property, hopefully in the next 3 months. I'm considering going with an FHA loan and house hacking this property. What I'm looking to get is a 4-plex around 200-300k. I had a question I wanted to ask regarding FHA financing, and that is:

1. Can I get FHA financing if I don't have a full-time job?

Right now, the only debt I have are Student loan debt, that don't kick in till beginning of 2021. I also pay $400/month for rent plus another roughly $100 a month in utilities. However, my rent will disappear as I will be moving back to live with my parents while I try to look for my own property. No credit card debt or payments of any sort. My bills amount to $250 a month.

In terms of income, I am currently unemployed; but previously was working at a banquet restaurant. I also own a few online stores that make me roughly 20k a year.

My credit score is in the mid 700s which i believe is good enough for an FHA financing. My only concern was that I might not get qualified due to the not having a w-2 job.

Do you guys think that I could get approved for FHA lending?

@Canesha Edwards Thank you for your reply and your tips! 

I was aiming for handwriting them too as I figured this would be a more personal way to get in touch with property owners!

Do you mind me asking about how much you spend on stamps?

I'd like to create a budget that will allow me to get through my entire list at least 3 times.

Hello BP Community.

I have finally gathered a list of potential houses that I would love to target in my farm area and am ready to start sending direct mail to these house. However, I have a few questions about getting started. 

For example:

How did you go about creating your letters? Did you use postcards? index cards? just regular paper? What did you use and found to be the most effective?

What was the most costly part of running your direct mail campaign? Was it generating the list? Purchasing the postcards, letters..etc?

How did you send your direct mail? (this may sound like a stupid question) But did you buy a bunch of stamp for each individual letter/postcard? What did you do that worked best?

If you had 6 months to run a campaign, how would you structure it? How many mailers would you send? Would you decrease or increase your farm area as you progress through your campaign?

Did you find it most effective to hand-write your mailers or to mass print them?

________

Thanks! 

Hey Moises,

I'm from San Diego as well and I'm currently learning about investing and getting started! Unlike you, I don't own any rentals so you are already ahead of so many people!

When it comes to out of state investing, I think Anthony is right in saying that you should invest in what you know.  for me personally, I have concluded that because I have no familiarity with Detroit, and do not see any of the economic indicators that I look for in choosing a market, I would stay clear of that area; unless you are prepared. I believe there are better markets out there for newbies like me and experts like you to get a bigger bang for their buck. I think the key in finding that market is knowledge. 

Stay safe out there!

@Anthony Dooleyundefined

Hello BP Community:

I'm looking to invest out of state since the market in my area is way too expensive for me to get started in and make it worth my while. That's why I am looking to invest back home in St. Louis Missouri, where I grew up. I am very familiar with the markets in St. Louis and know of a couple neighborhoods that I would like to ideally invest in.

My question has to do with the financing aspect of the deal. I was curious as if it any loopholes exists where one can finance a property through an FHA loan and bypass the minimum 1 year owner occupied requirement of the loan? I believe that this would be extremely beneficial in allowing me to secure a property back home with little down, since I don't have enough for a 20% down payment and costs of rehab. In the meantime growing my professional career as an accountant here in San Diego.

I would love to hear back with any advice or experiences that you all may have

Also, I would love to connect with some of you in person as well. Any of my local San Diego investors would like to connect, let me know. 

Any investors who do majority of their deals in north county st. Louis Missouri want to share their experiences and pros and cons of investing in that area?

Hey Tim.  I would recommend taking a look at Netronline.com. You can get access to public records from your local city tax assessor.  You can also try to find a list of properties on listsource.com by narrowing your search on what you are looking to find.

hope this helps. 

Thanks Megan!