All Forum Posts by: Darrell Shepherd

If you are putting 20% down on income properties, your credit wont really matter.  You can do non recourse commercial loans without much trouble if the cash flow is established and you are putting real money down.

I'm not very sensitive to price, other than I don't like to mess with stuff under $100k, just value.  I've got virtually unlimited access to capital, the numbers just have to work.  I was looking at downtown primarily.  It was a short visit, but it seemed to be bustling with obvious growth and a shortage of hotel rooms.  Good indicators, I'd be interested to see the demographic trends, especially job growth.   I'm mostly flips right now, but would pick up some rentals if they made sense and I had a good PM in place.  I saw lots of older homes in the area I was in and it was close enough in there was new construction and such where I was.  Reminded me of what we're doing in Charlotte.  The inflation is a good thing for RE, TN is underpriced in relation to the rest of the country so I'd expect the trend to be up for the long term.

If anybody has something they want to wholesale, let me know, I'm looking for stuff to buy. I'd JV with someone and bring all the money if they have a construction background and will run the rehab.

Try looking at a local credit union or small community bank. The HMLs that will do those small loans will kill you with minimum origination fees. You should be able to get a HELOC or secured personal loan with that score and any decent income. That's a pretty small amount, you can go private too. Lots of people have $40k sitting around with the stock market so volatile. I just borrowed $60k for a boat at 6% because my guy was trying to get some money out of stocks and I wanted to be able to pay the loan back in chunks as I sold houses instead of monthly since I don't have monthly income. I pay him WAY more on the flips we do. With that kind of credit score something like Prosper.com would work well I think, but I've never used them.

Its changed some, I used to tell people to look for the "we buy houses" ads, but these days the vast majority of the ads are wholesalers. Still a good place to start. Your local REIA is a good place to be. Its a relationship business, the more people you know the better.

I get several calls a month from my website of people building their list, they're all more or less reading the same script that says "I get several houses a week at discounted prices" which, of course, I know is BS and I never hear from them again.  I can tell when a seminar comes through because I get the same phone call from 10 people in a week.  Know how many of those have ever approached me with a house?  Pretty much zero.  I humor them if I'm in my car because I remember what it was like starting out, but most of the time I give them everything they need and they want to keep me on the phone asking how many bedrooms I'm looking for when I've already told them I don't care because they're reading a script and I did a pattern interrupt they can't deal with.  Don't be that guy.  You really just want to know if they are buy and hold or rehabber and ask what numbers they buy at and get off the phone, send a follow up email or whatever, but nothing you are going to say before you have a deal is going to matter to a real buyer.  Buy and hold guys generally want 3/2 or better, some care about age, most don't.  Those guys generally don't buy in volume.  They'll pay more for the house, but don't want full blown rehabs.  Rehabbers (like me) usually want to buy at 70% less repairs or better and don't care about what they're buying as long as they know they can sell it when they're done.  The real players buy lots of houses, I'm looking to do 20+ this year and only that few because I'm having trouble finding ones that fit my numbers.

Deals are harder to find than people to buy them right now.  That's not always the case, just the way the market is at this time.  I'm a pretty firm believer that if the deal is right the money is always there.  

If it were me, I'd find a handful of real buyers and network with some other wholesalers who can help you unload things and then really focus on finding deals.

I was in Nashville a couple of weeks ago and it sure looked like opportunity. Would love to connect with anyone doing work up there. Wholesaler/agent/contractor, etc. and get a little education about the market. Is there a REIA someone could tell me about?

I'd buy in Tampa if the numbers work.  I'm looking for rehabs and would love an excuse be down there.  Not sure how easy they are to find there, most of what I've seen in Florida is pricey, but if you can find anything at 70% less repairs in places people want to live I'm a buyer all day long.  You get to sell it when I'm done too.

There are some soft money programs out there that do long term loans like this with minimal qualifying.  Higher rates, but usually in the 8's or so, not sure if that'd wreck your cash flow.  Not sure you'd need that, just throwing it out there.

Check with a commercial loan broker and see whats available, money is softening.  '

I personally don't borrow from big banks, they are too rigid.  They flat out suck if anything gets outside of the box.  Small community banks are usually your best bet for small real estate loans.  Banks are very highly regulated so will be somewhat similar in what they do.  You'll get different options from a commercial brokers that use other funding sources.  It'll be a good learning process as you ask them. 

Just find a property and call and say you are considering buying and tell them your situation and listen to what they say.  If its already income producing and you have the down payment you may be surprised how easy the commercial loans are to get over residential.  

Good luck, wish I had that kinda capital to get started with when I was your age!

Same routine as a bank if they are actually foreclosing. They all do different stuff, though. The institutional guys act very much like banks. The small guys lending their own or someone else's private money does what an investor would do- dump it if it's a loser, fix and sell it if it's a winner. They'll usually do a cash for keys if they can to avoid the hassle of steps. No hard and fast rules on that stuff and honestly the ones that do it right don't get many repos.

Yeah, I have contractor boxes on all my houses. I ask for a pic of their drivers license, but I've only started doing that the last few years. Can't even imagine not going into a house I might buy if I could. I break in plenty (if a window is open or something). Selling its worth losing some appliances once every 10 years versus driving to a house to show every Looky Lou that comes around. Maybe you're in rougher areas than I work, but I have way more trouble with contractors stealing from me than I ever have with buyers.

Hey Allen, I'd like that info and any rehabs you come across in Cobb.  Val, I'd like to see your project, I live just down the street...