All Forum Posts by: Sophia Wang

Will,

All in at 256k, exit at 349k, and only net 58k. The buying, holding and selling cost 36k?

Lily, Thanks very much for the clarification and tips!

Thanks Nick and Lily! I will find a proper opportunity to give him the heads up on the fact that I am pursuing my license, and hopefully he will be ok with it.

Lily, I am not sure if NJ has the law about buyer has to sign a 'buyer brokerage agreement' prior to working with an agent. Virginia just put this into law this July, and now buyer is required to sign a contract for a fixed time frame before an agent could start working with you, showing properties. I am still trying to work out how to frame the time period and details so I don't get myself into trouble, as I do have another Realtor sending me deals as well.

Thanks J for your input. I guess I have to test it out how good he is at either end. He has a family business/brokerage, and everybody focuses on one end of the deal.

Reading too many posts on the forum, and the disclosure thing is getting me a little nervous. Now, got to focus on find a deal to work on instead of over-thinking!

I finally decided to get my RE license, and just signed up for a classroom class this month. It will take a while to get my license, as the class itself is one month long - I am doing it week nights and weekends, since I have a full time job. Plus the preparation and taking the exam, applying for the license, and finding a broker to hang the license, I can see it will be a few months away before I actually have MLS access.

Now I also just FINALLY found a investor friendly real estate agent, who seems to know what he is doing, and we are going to start working on some offers. He seems to have a lot of knowledge on real estate investing, and has flipped quite some houses himself. He is very adamant about covering both end of the deals, which I understand since they don't make a lot of money on the buy.

My question, at what point, I should disclose the fact that I am getting the license myself? I do intend to let the agent get both end of every deals we started together, even if I already had the license by the time I need to sell. For those of you who eventually got the license yourselves and no longer work with the agent you started with, do you still have a good relationship with the agent, and how easy it was to break the news to them?

I might be just over thinking about this.

Happy Belated Birthday Jason! Hope you had a fun-filled day with family and friends.

I really enjoyed the knowledge and experience you shared with us on your blog and here at the BP forum! Thanks for making the real estate investment community better and more friendly.

Thanks Loc! Looks like I need to work harder to find a better deal!

On a side note, would it be wise to start with something small like this, considering we will be tied up for a while due to family reasons, mainly time wise. Or keep looking for something 'sexier' to jump in...

My fear is that we won't be able to land anything until our family situation is slightly better to allow us to look more actively on better deals, and meanwhile, money just sits there doing nothing.

Thanks Jake, it is our first attempt at REI, and we know it is not an exciting deal as it is off the MLS.

The only reason I am interested in this property is that I own another condo in the same neighborhood which is upside down (we paid way over twice of this price at the peak. silly us), and we are very familiar with the community, management.

But as you and many others said, this is just an ordinary buy, nothing to get excited. I am simply trying to figure out if this is a terrible idea to start with while we learn and search for better deals.

Thank you all for your input. I appreciate it very much.

We are new to Real Estate investment, and just start to learn the market and the analysis process. Interested in one condo, and below is the numbers and info:
- asking price 67k; (just dropped from 72k in May, and has been 72k since last Sep)
- propose to offer between 57k to 60k based on recent sales in the same area;
- hoping to put down 20% and the rest 45k ish finance for 15 years;
- rent is average about $800-850 a month (3bed, 2.5 bath);
- the property is a condo, so HOA is $150 a month right now, and has been at this range for the past few years.
- the property is assessed at 89k, but recent sales are all around 60k in the neighborhood, this particular house was actually last sold at 50k back in the early 90's.
- the area is a University town, and the property is relatively close to the campus, so rental should not be too hard to get, but turn around might be high, like every year.

Using the free analysis spreadsheet, it looks like we are barely $100 positive a month on this one. But using the 50% rule, it doesn't seem to be working too well.

Questions:
- is investing in condo ever a good idea? considering you will always have to pay the HOA fee (currently $150/month).
- is it possible/easy to get a loan for 45k ish? and with today's rate like 4%? we do have the means to put down all cash, but don't really want to tie up all the money.
- is it a good idea to get finance for 15 years or we should go the 30 years route? (if we can get a loan at such a small amount)
- what is your overall feel about this investment?

Sorry for a lot of rumbling. Hope to get your input!! Thanks in advance.