All Forum Posts by: Jason Stanley

Hi Meidrian,

I'm in the West Atlanta market along with a few others here. It's a good market, but things are tightening down on inventory.

I wanted to welcome you as well. I'm in the west Atlanta market, seems like there are a few of us here.

The bigger question to me is, and I ask honestly because I don't know, is it worth getting in touch with the REI clubs? I plan to attend the North GA one in the near future, but don't know what to expect or what benefit there may be.

I've considered doing something similar recently, I'd love to hear more opinions. That said, I don't really like to use "debt" to do business, so I'm torn.

I don't want to hijack your thread, but have a property I'm looking at on Auction.com, anyone have any experience with them? I've read horrendous reviews about them, but I'd really love to get this property!

That said, I've contacted the listing agent and my agent to get more info.

Here in Metro Atlanta, the norm for rental houses is to have a built in range hood/ microwave. That's in the typical middle income neighborhoods. I include all appliances, even the washer/dryer if that gets a better tenant and quicker move in.

Agree with J Scott on this, I went with option # 1. on his list due to my inexperience. My first two, once I had them under contract, I had an inspector come in during the due diligence period. I also had a couple of contractors come in and see if they found or missed things the inspector did. I had them give quotes based on what was found and what level of rehab I wanted to do.

Welcome! Rich Dad, Millionaire Next Door, Millionaire Real Estate Investor, The Total Money Makeover, and a few others are good reads. Those combined will give you a good start in reading. I'm still learning and reading every day.

I see there are lot's of local folk here, so that's good. I've connected with a few already and hope to grow that number and build on those relationships.

I actually stumbled into real estate at first, dealing with a home that I bought at the wrong time, built a bigger, more affordable house in the country, and subsequently being unable to sell the first home. I floated the mortgage on the first home for WAY too long, then decided to have a property management company "take care of it". I was disgusted with the situation and decision to build and not be able to sell and wanted no involvement.

I was happy to get a tenant in right away...almost immediately. I took this as good timing and hoped for the best. What I got was about 3 months rent out of a six month nightmare that ended with a nasty eviction, me back floating the notes and $6k + worth of damage and a very bad taste in my mouth. At this point I was ready to short sale the place just to end the problems.

This is when I had an epiphany, I was doing it all wrong, no one cares about your stuff like you do and I found this out the hard way. I decided to educate myself and become a landlord until the market turns. What I discovered was that I really enjoyed managing the property and I could rent it out for a really decent profit(not technically at first, as I had to recover my losses from the damage).

I have since established my LLC, paid cash for 2 foreclosures and rehabbed them. The intent was to rent these both out and hold them to sale down the road. I rented one out and then decided to sale the other to free the capitol up to invest in more flips. I have this one under contract and should close in July.

That's where we are now and are looking for properties to purchase currently. It's definitely a competitive market between the investors and the drying up inventory. I will be working on a blog and/or website, any suggestions on a good host and so forth would be appreciated.

I don't have a blog yet, any suggestions on a good starting point would be great. I've got some good before and after pics and I think it would help me keep on top of things.