All Forum Posts by: Shawn Faris

@Alex Bock     Please tag others

Mark your calendars for another Quad Cities REI meeting. We will be meeting on Wednesday, August 8th 2018 from 6-8PM at the Stardust in downtown Davenport! They have been so kind as to accommodate us for our meetings. We had a great turnout and an excellent networking event for our last meeting, lets see if we can keep this going. Come prepared to meet new like minded people, share your knowledge, learn from others, and overall just have a great time. In addition to general networking I will plan to come with a few of my own personal tips & strategies to share based on my experience. This will include ways to find deals, driving for dollars, general financing, target markets, and anything else useful I can think of. As a benefit for the whole group, feel free to bring your own thoughts on investing. Please reach out to Shawn Faris or Alex Bock with questions.

Keywords: Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, Rock Island, Quad Cities, Le Claire, Eldridge, East Moline

@David Hald

Not sure if you got the feedback you were looking for. I am currently primarily a Bettendorf investor but am expanding my horizons to include Davenport. My target area in general terms is south of locust but East of Bridge St or North of locust in general. Having said that a lot of this really depends on what exactly you are looking for in a property. I will sacrifice some cash flow to own a property with a better chance of less headaches and a better chance at appreciation. Having said this, in my opinion the East village area is very desirable for millenials given the closeness to the village. There are however a lot of run down properties in the area which tends to drive down values and rent. On the outskirts of the east village it can vary drastically block to block. Feel free to message me if you are looking for feedback on a specific address. I have come across a few off market deals in that area which I have passed on recently because they were not really great deals.

@Nathan Murray the answer to this question may depend highly on exactly what type of loan you are looking for as I use two different banks, 1 for commercial lending (5 year balloon, 20-25 year amortization) and more products for rehab versus another for conventional lending (30 year fixed). Also very important distinction between the 2 will likely be how much downpayment you are wanting to use. Let me know what exactly you are looking for and I can give you a recommendation on who I personally use. Pre-approvals for loan should not take 30 days, they shouldn't take a week, heck in most cases it shouldn't take more than 1-2 days. Closing on the other hand depending on the time of year with a conventional lender will typically be 30 days minimum. I did a 23 day close this year with my conventional lender, but that was definitely tight and not busy season.

Shawn

@Alex Bock Please tag others.

Mark your calendars for another Quad Cities REI meeting. We will be meeting on Tuesday, June 19th 2018 from 6-8PM at the in downtown Davenport! They have been so kind as to accommodate us for our meetings. We had a great turnout and an excellent networking event for our last meeting, lets see if we can keep this going. For those who joined last time the AC has been fixed as well, so we can stay cool. Come prepared to meet new like minded people, share your knowledge, learn from others, and overall just have a great time. Please reach out to Alex Bock or Shawn Faris with questions.

@Alex Bock

Mark your calendars folks! Our first meeting will be on Thursday May 17th 2018 from 6-8PM at the Stardust in downtown Davenport! They have been so kind as to accommodate us for our meetings twice a month. They will have beer for sale (cash only) for those who would like to partake. Please contact Alex Bock (Contact info on profile) with any questions.

@Alex Bock I would definitely be interested in seeing something revived here.

@Allison Massey The one thing that I found with Bettendorf is that you end up paying near retail for anything that is truly for sale whether that be a sign in yard, FSBO site, or MLS. Unless it is drastically overpriced or something wrong (foundation/water issues/etc) they tend to sell quickly if advertised well. I am very happy with the purchases that I have made as both cash flow around $400 per month and 14% cash on cash return, but these are also on 30 year fixed mortgages (which are awesome btw). As we look to expand our portfolio we would really like to try to purchase a portion of a portfolio (multiple single family properties) which makes getting 30 year fixed mortgages a challenge so we have been working with a local bank but will have to utilize a 5 year balloon amortized over 20-25 years which definitely has a large impact on cash flow. Although I was able to pay slightly less than retail for the properties I purchased I feel like both were a result of poor advertising efforts on behalf of the seller. Moving forward as we look at expanding our portfolio over the next year my wife and I have put significant effort into focusing heavily on our target area within Bettendorf. Our prime focus was to find properties via driving that appeared to be somewhat neglected from the outside and then from there see if the owners are willing to sell. We also very closely watch for the investors trying to rent in the area with a sign in yard only. They tend to struggle to rent these properties not utilizing electronic resources (Facebook, Zillow, etc). The benefit that we have is that any marketing dollars we spend have the potential to benefit us as investors or for my wife's business as an agent. I'm guessing from your standpoint the "driving for dollars" aspect may be a challenge, so you will want to make sure that you have someone with boots on the ground who can help connect you with these kinds of opprtunities.