All Forum Posts by: Tamara Deering

@Account Closed

I agree with @Ethan G., I work for a firm that lends hard money and it is getting quite a bit harder to find qualified buyers and deals.  If you decide to go this route I think you may want to consider going to a whole bunch of meet ups and finding a few flippers who seem to do good quality work and work with them in a private lending arrangement. The competitive rate for hard money lenders is between 9 and 10% with 2-3 points in fees, so if you want to compete for the best borrowers you will have to beat that.  The other thought is to take on a bit more risk and lend in areas that are hard to place.  Vacant land, ranches, rv parks, and areas like McCallen and some places North of Dallas are underserved by the lending market.  You could also buy notes, either performing or non-performing depending on your strategy and short circuit the search for a borrower.

Welcome to Houston, I wish you the best in your investing efforts.

I am a notary but I've never looked into the LSA route because as was mentioned most banks will notarize docs for free and if you ask most title companies will send the borrower the closing package including instructions to the notary via email.  But I do know that there are still people using mobile closers so I guess it's like everything else, you can probably make a living if you hustle but you will starve if you don't.

@Aaron Gordy

Please stop telling everyone how great Austin is, let's keep it our little secret.  You can take everything North of downtown and I'll try and get everything South of there, I'll even let you have 04 because I'm priced out.

@Ron McGriff

I agree with everyone who says that Temple/Killeen will likely never be a satellite of Austin/Dallas unless Elon Musk gets his weird hyper fast subway tunnel built but even then it is unlikely.  Texas is just too big with too many undeveloped pockets closer to those metropolitan areas than Killeen/Temple.

I am going to be the sole dissenter here because I'm one of the few Austin area investors who lives SE of the city.  I think there will be a solid market in the Lockhart, Bastrop, and Elgin areas.  The commutes from these locations are generally shorter than some of the in city commutes.  For instance, I live 33 miles away and my commute in to work is 45 minutes - 20 to 25 of which occurs in the 5 miles from Todd Lane to my office on S. 1st street.  The prices in the south east counties will always be more stable because the areas are less desirable and less well known but they are still appreciating.  If you are going to follow the heard then Manor and Del Valle and far east Austin along 969 would be my bet.  

@Peak Deshawne

You are looking for a commercial line of credit that is collateralized against your portfolio.  Call mortgage brokers until you find someone who knows what you are talking about when you say a "commercial line of credit with cross-property collaterization" or something very similar to that.  Then explain your situation and see what options are available.

The only conventional programs I know of that loan on ARV are the FHA 203k and those are for owner occupants. You most likely will need to get an asset based (hard or private money) for the purchase and repair and then refi. You can also buy conventionally through a credit union if the house qualifies and then use non-conventional financing to fund the repairs - although that will likely end up more expensive than just getting a hard money loan to start.

There is a seasoning period for bankruptcy, did you complete your bankruptcy or was it dismissed? If the bankruptcy was dismissed because you didn't follow through on the arrangements you made with the Court that could be a problem. There are some asset based programs that may work for you but gifting the down payment to your kids and having them take out an owner occupant FHA loan may be the best strategy. The kids purchasing as owner occupants might also help because for most condos there is a percentage of owners to investors that must be maintained for a loan to be approved.

@John Acheson

I have been throwing around the idea of a non-profit housing organization for years.  I believe in better lives through better houses unfortunately I have never had enough dedication to following through.  My thought was to rehab the "war zones" and offer houses at affordable rates for Section 8, Heroes (police, teachers, first responders, etc) and every day working class people.  I don't believe in low income housing developments per se, but I do believe everyone deserves a good quality home they can be proud of.

There are some great programs out there doing good work, my advice would be to find an organization that is doing what you want to do and follow them.  A lot of those organizations have written books or blogs about exactly how they got started.  Also, there is a lot of government assistance out there for affordable housing so learning to write a grant or finding a grant writer is important, finally every state has developed opportunity zones to encourage economic development that have huge tax advantages - you need to purchase by the end of the year to get the full benefits but the program continues for the next ten years.

My biggest limiting factor is I try and do everything myself.  I would love to talk with you and find out what your plans are and see if we can help each other get started and push through the analysis phase.  I'm concentrating on central Texas.

@Dw Harris

There was a real estate show with Genevieve Gorder that showed how she would design properties to increase the desirability as short term rentals.  The take aways were make the space look inviting, take great pictures, tell an intriguing story about the property to make it unique and make it as easy as possible for your guests to enjoy the stay in your area.  The show emphasized that you are running a very small hotel so you should think about the hotel experience when you are setting up your short term rental.  Anyway nothing like advice from house porn but it makes sense.  Congratulations on developing a strategy and sticking with it.  Keep us posted on how it turns out.

@Alvaro Rodriguez

It seems like you are all over the map as far as your investment strategy which tells me you  have not defined what it is that you are trying to do and why.  Rules of thumb like the 1% rule and the 70% rule are there to help you quickly analyze deals and throw out the ones that make no sense.  

What is it that you are trying to accomplish with real estate investing?  Are you looking to make a career out of flipping houses?  Are you trying to build financial independence with passive income?  Are you trying to make a living wholesaling?  

You need to determine what your goal is, what numbers you want to net profit and/or income wise.  Once you know your goal you need to identify what type of property will satisfy that goal and where you are most likely to find that type of property.  After you know where the property is likely to be found direct all of your energy to finding a property in that location that meets your numbers.  While you are looking for properties you also need to put your funding strategy in place, are you going to use hard money to finance the deal or do you think you will qualify for a conventional mortgage?  

If you don't want to go to all the work to figure out what it is that you want to do my advice to you would be to purchase a live-in flip. Find a house that is livable but not desirable in a market that is likely to appreciate, get a conventional or FHA owner occupant mortgage with little or no money down, move in, fix it up while you live in the property, make your house payments and in two years you can either sell it tax free and move into your next project or rent it out. If you couple this strategy with house hacking and get tenants to pay part of your mortgage you are well on your way. The beauty of this strategy is you aren't competing with investors for properties you are competing with homeowners who aren't willing to make sacrifices in the short term to improve their long term lives.

I'm sorry if this sounds like a lecture.  Connect with me directly if you would like help putting together a step by step plan or follow @Craig Curelop and get going.