All Forum Posts by: Tiffany Shan

Thanks so much, @Mark Nolan!

My mom asks for a reference for new tenants. Had one guy list his own cell phone number (which he also used as his own contact info) as his reference, and then when we called, he did a fake accent and pretended to be someone else...! 

Thanks so much, guys! I'll definitely reach out as I refine our criteria :)

Hi! Newbie originally from Deerfield, IL, currently living in SF. I've got 2 goals for my time in Bigger Pockets:

1. My family lives in Deerfield & has one rental property (condo) in the Chicagoland area that's done really well for us. We'd like to explore further investments; we're all really new to real estate and got really lucky with our first purchase, so we're trying to be more intentional with future ones. Aiming to deploy between $50K-$80K and trying to figure out how to best do this, ideally in the Chicago area as family is very nervous about out of state :)

2. I work for a sort of research group (hence my choosing the "virtual assistant" label, though that's not quite accurate, currently exploring novel SFR financing techniques. Have learned a lot from reading these forums and excited to try and contribute more!

Came across an LA Times article about this company and thought their approach was interesting and wanted to share (you can Google "Unison LA Times" if you're curious). The summary is:

-They've been around for 12 years, have $27m in assets (so this is definitely still in experimental stages)

-They used to have a refi alternative but now have a product where they double your down payment in exchange for money back + X% of the gain in home value

-The specific example given was doubling a 10% downpayment on a $650K home in exchange for the $65K back and 35% of the gains (but you can take up to 30 years to sell the house)

I've come across several startups offering deals like this and I'm curious what more experienced SFR investors think.

From the investor perspective: In some ways it's an appealing model because if I were to hypothetically give someone this deal myself, I could speculate on appreciation without going through the trouble of running a rental... but of course, no cash flow, and who knows when they will sell.