All Forum Posts by: Mark Manship

Good afternoon @Matthias Wilson! My wife and I just recently moved into Niceville; I'm working towards finding/closing on my first investment property by September of next year. I would love to talk to you sometime about your scope and how you first got started in the area. 

I grew up in the Niceville area, but am interested in finding a small beach-proximate property to buy/hold. Welcome to BP!

@Mary lou L., I know this post is a little old; just now reading some archived forum posts from the past couple of months. Did you have any luck in finding a property in your desired range?

Good morning @Paul Denaro! I am new to the Pandhandle area, and was curious how widespread your group is in their investing, more specifically, are you focused purely on Panama City, or in the surrounding areas as well (Destin, Fort Walton Beach, etc.)?

I had planned on focusing more on Niceville/Fort Walton/Destin, but am always open to expanding my "range" into the Panama City realm.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

@Chris Ntwali, you can find a lot of helpful resources (including sample contracts and forms) at BiggerPocket's FilePlace: https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/category/contr...

Best of luck in your new endeavor!

Just another throw in here: just recently closed on a property in Florida - while my name is the only one on the title, my wife DOES have to sign at closing due to the fact that her primary residence has debt (a mortgage) associated with it, among other reasons tied to Florida homestead laws.

According to..."Paragraph (c) of Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution prevents the married owner of protected homestead property from conveying, encumbering, or otherwise alienating that property without the consent of the owner's spouse, and also prohibits the owner from devising that property if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child."

I'm not a lawyer, and this issue could easily (more accurately) be resolved by a local attorney, but homestead laws are pretty wide reaching in that they prevent certain sales of property to protect the family.

@Derek Pigulski, welcome to BP! My family and I just PCS'd in from Cannon (whoop), and we're really excited to be here. I spent a good part of my childhood here in Niceville and am looking forward to starting my REI career in a place where "it all began" for me.

I don't know if you're already plugged in, but there is a an investors group called the P.I.G. that has a few chapters in the area; they also host the occasional speaker. There's also a FWB networking group that I, myself, just joined that meets on the last Tuesday of each month (get ahold of @Arianne L. and she'll get you squared away). This upcoming Tuesday, the 27th, will be my first time going, but I'm sure the group would love to have more involvement.

We are still trying to find a buyer for our Clovis, NM house as we close on our new home here in Niceville, and hope to have both deals finalized soon. My goals over the next year are to capitalize on whatever earnings we receive from that NM flip and put it towards our first true investment; I'm also very much interested in earning my real estate license and would love to hear from you on your experience in attaining it.

Look forward to hearing from you and the eventual meetup; again, welcome to BP!

- Mark

I can't speak for Florida, but when we purchased our first SFH in New Mexico, the seller in the deal had inherited the property through an estate, but had never lived in it. When we received the disclosure, it was full of "Seller Doesn't Know" and similar responses to the standard questions regarding the roof, exterior, plumbing, HVAC, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the seller in your case is protected from providing information they may or may not know having never lived in the property. Clauses/rules like these protect sellers from providing incomplete or incorrect information about the property.

Good morning BP!

As part of a recent house-hunt, I started a small excel sheet to help determine the current pp/sqft in various areas that we were interested in. This ended up turning into a project which I have devoted a considerable amount of hours to in order to capture trend data for a few neighborhoods that I'm interested in investing in. Unfortunately, I've now realized the sheer number of man hours that my desired outputs will require, and am wondering if anyone knows of a site/product/etc. that generates some or all of the following data for a specific neighborhood/area within a city:

- Price per square foot as a function of time (average over the past month, 3-month, year, 5-year...)

- Average square footage, # bedrooms, # of baths for current property list

- Distribution of property types (single family home, apartment, townhouse, condo)

- Average age of homes

- % or # breakdown of sold properties by month for a calendar year (i.e. for 2016: 12% sold in Jan, 5% in Feb, 20% in Mar...)

I know that sites like Zillow and Trulia can provide some trend data, but I'm looking for something a little more specialized.

Any thoughts?

I'm a fairly new listener to the BP podcast; just got to #17, and am looking for any guidance/experience that any fellow "newbies" or vets have in allocating their capital, specifically with regards to their retirement investments (Roth IRA, Thrift Savings Plan, and Real Estate).

On Podcast #17, Jeff Brown mentions that the "traditional" vehicles towards retirement wealth are dated and end up disappointing their users at the age of 60+. I was a little late to the investment game, but started contributing fully to my Roth IRA in my mid-20's, and just recently started contributions to my TSP (military thrift savings plan) in an effort to diversify through established and well-known methods.

My concern after listening to Mr. Brown is following the path of least resistance when it comes to retirement planning; sure, maybe IRA's don't yield amazing returns, but are they still a sound means by which to save for retirement? It does seem like I would be the odd-man out if I didn't follow the crowd in investing in an IRA. After 3 years of IRA contributions, I have yet to see a ROI worth rejoicing about, and more importantly, nothing I'm seeing beats inflation. I wasn't expecting double digit returns by any means, however, I'm curious if anyone else has opted out of the IRA/TSP game in order to retain those contribution funds for REI?

My goals are somewhat ill-defined, in that I haven't narrowed in on what I would "need" to retire without a job, but in the essence of providing a benchmark for discussion purposes, let's say I would like to:

- Generate system of cash flow w/in next 10 years to supplement overseas travel expenses and hobbies for family of 5.

- Have enough wealth accumulated by age 45 to afford college tuition assistance for 1+ children

- Stop ALL W-2 work at the age of 60

- By age 60, have enough income through military retirement, cash flow, and other ROI to cover living expenses + leisure (travel, hobbies) for my wife and I; goal would be to have no mortgage on primary dwelling

- Establish a trust worth a darn to my wife, children, grandchildren, etc. (abilities to fund their own respective RE down payments, business ideas, education, etc.)