All Forum Posts by: Thomas Good

Jordan, congrats for getting into the real estate investment in the Kanawha Valley. Good luck with your investment future.

If you are looking for local lenders who will lend to real estate investors including flippers, try First Bank of Charleston and First Sentry Bank in Huntington. First Sentry just expanded into Nitro with the acquisition of Rock Branch Community Bank, and they will lend in Kanawha County. Of course they will require good personal credit and the ability to show income. Some of the local credit unions such as Star may have some interest in lending to investors from time to time.

My Charleston facility consists of a 48,000 square foot former furniture store and another 29,000 square foot warehouse across the street connected by a three story walkway. These buildings were vacant for 3 years. I've converted the larger building at a cost of under $21 a square foot. I haven't done anything with the warehouse yet. My most costly expensive was converting the existing freight elevator into a passenger elevator. The purchase of both buildings together cost me $7.25 a square foot.

The conversion of the Huntington building, which is a mix use building (it houses 4 apartments in addition to my business offices), cost about $20 a square foot to convert. The building costed me $10.50 a square foot to purchase and outside of 2 apartments had been vacant for 10 years. It is smaller than the Charleston complex.

The buildings at both locations were built in late 1920's so there have been a few unforeseen challenges such as bringing the buildings to current code which included changing sprinkler heads dated from 1917 and 1928, and building new stairwells to the exterior of the building to meet current fire regulations.

I enjoy building but I think I like taking old buildings and reusing them more.

I live in WV where I have converted existing long vacant buildings in Huntington and Charleston, which are WV's two largest cities, into climate control storage. Neither city had much in the way of Climate Control storage units and what was available was priced fairly high. The cost to convert after building purchase was not only less expensive than building new but it also took less time to do so as well.

The one facility I did build from the ground up is located between the two aforementioned cities in a steady growing area which has no old buildings.

Each time I acquired, converted, or built, I checked out the local pricing and used a preliminary feasibility study from Mr Chiswell.  

I got my feet wet in storage with Scott Meyer's self storage training program in 2010. He had alot of good information that I still use today in my storage business.

Since 2011, I've built, purchased, or converted existing buildings into self storage units. I have used Jim Chiswell with Chiswell & Associates for my feasibility studies and have been quite pleased. Jim is a speaker at the ISS annual Vegas conference and has over 25 years in the storage business. He is located in Leesburg Va. He is reasonably priced but can be booked up.  

Glad to find another investor in Huntington. 

Once you have verified the house is truly worth $161,000 and the market can bare $1500 in rent, I would contact Patrick, Toby, or Sherry in the Commercial Department at First Sentry for financing consideration. First Sentry works well with new investors in the Huntington. The main thing is make sure it will cash flow.  

I assume when you say this property is close to the community park, you are referencing Ritter Park. There are some good areas around the park, but I would be careful assuming building another home on the vacant lot in the future as a viable approach. Very few new homes are built in Huntington and it is hard to build where you can create much equity. You might be ok with building a duplex as long as it is zoned properly.  

If you are looking for a company in the Kanawha Valley, it is my understanding all property managers in WV must be a licensed real estate agent. I would contact some of the larger real estate companies like Old Colony or Real Estate Central for their contacts and go from there. I personally manage my own properties.

Adrian,

Nice to touch base with another WV investor.

I have come across a few wholesalers in my area, however, they totally under estimate the required repairs or the properties are junk. I find until the wholesaler has successfully rehabbed a few properties, they can't effectively estimate the value of the property or its repair cost.

Please stay in touch.

I'm looking for an iPad app developer with real estate knowledge and / or development with real estate related apps. I need to develop an app with CRM and property rehab cost analysis functionality on a contract basis to be used internally by my employees. I have specifications in mind.

I've used a variety of applications in the past on the PC but nothing that could integrate all the information I've needed nor was as portable as the IPad.

I'm contemplating posting my requirements on Odesk or freelancer.com but I would ask here for referrals first.

Thank you

Thank you for the responses. I will post my questions pertaining to software on the other forum.

Jon,

I prefer self storage over most other commercial property types for just some of the following reasons:

1. Lower break even point. On average the break even point for storage is between 60 to 65 percent occupancy while multi-family can be as high as 85 percent. This is especially important when building a new facility and considering how much reserves are needed.
2. Less headaches. No calls about leaking toilets or roofs, domestic disputes, appliances not working etc., which I have experienced with our family and retail business rentals.
3. Less management intensive. I spend about 3 hours a week monitoring the progress of our facilities including the progress of the newest facility. Even though our new facility has an onsite manager, we have a kiosk in place that can take new rentals and payments without ever needing to meet the new tenant.

These are just a few reasons why I like self storage.

Thank you

Hello.

I recently found this site and was quite impressed with the content and knowledge of the various posters.

I've been a full time investor since 2008 focusing on single family rehabs / resells and multi use commercial properties in western WV and southeast OH. This year my company constructed a new self storage facility with UHaul rental center. My goals are to continue rehabbing 16 to 20 houses and acquire and / or build 1 to 2 self storage facilities a year.

I hope to gain insight from other investors on this site and provide feedback that may help others.

I'm currently searching for comprehensive seller lead tracking software that not only includes information about the seller and demographics on their homes but also all estimated rehab costs and past offer information. We've tried tracking on paper, excel, and started using property fixer IPad app to track estimated rehab costs, but these are not efficient tools for up to four people that are not centrally located.

Any help with pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I rarely wholesale properties so I didn't consider using products like Freedomsoft.

Thank you