All Forum Posts by: Troy Gandee

Hey @Bobby HolleyHmm... That's a tough one, man. I recently had a confusing one similar to this. I had a rehab listed and a neighbor called to ask if I would want to buy her house because she wanted to be in a better house. Fortunately, the comps were starting to creep upward, so I was able to buy her out of her mortgage and only had to put around 5k into the house. It's under contract now in and I should make a little something. The whole project only took 4 months. I was then able to help the seller find another house and represent her as her buyer's agent. It worked out pretty well. I wouldn't go the hard money route, either but you may be able to get a bridge/transactional loan if the timing is short enough. The interest can be pretty brutal, though. You should touch your sphere of influence and see if maybe you can get your hands on some private money with a fair return to your lender. You probably know someone with a retirement account that they may be willing to tap if you secure them with a mortgage. There is going to be a whole lot of moving parts here and things could go sideways quickly. If your friends in Charleston are interested in buying, I would be happy to reach out to them. Maybe looking at properties here would motivate them on the selling side. 

Hi @Ashleigh Evans

Welcome to BP and real estate investing. You'll find this place to be a great resource for real estate and investing information. There are tons of things to read and lots of people to talk to. I'm a Realtor and investor. I would be happy to help if you have any questions or need an agent for anything. You should also check out the BP podcast and maybe get your hands on a couple of their beginner's investing books.

-Troy

@Dylan HainesYou should definitely take @Russ Scheiderup on his offer. Russ is a wealth of knowledge and he legitimately loves to help people out.

@Alex FranksThanks! Let me know when you're heading to Charleston and we can sit down for a few.

The VAs that come to me are after the property has been renovated and it is being bought by a retail buyer on the back end. If you try to buy a property TO renovate with a VA loan, it is likely in bad shape and the VA is very strict on which properties they will finance. If there are safety issues or any defective systems, it is likely that they will not lend to you to BUY the distressed property TO renovate. If you SELL a rehabbed property to a VA buyer, it's a different story because the house is in retail condition.

I also highly don't think that refinancing into a VA would be effective. I'm not familiar with that process at all or if the VA even offers much in the way of refinancing products.

I personally would try to utilize the VA to get into a multifamily. Live in one unit and rent the others out. FHAs and VAs assume and require that you live in their financed homes as a primary residence. You aren't really supposed to move completely out of the property unless you do refinance with a different lender or you experience some kind of outstanding circumstance that requires you to move. That sounds much more difficult than it usually is, though. A lot of people's "circumstances change" because they have to drive across town to go to work, etc.

Does that make sense? I didn't realize that was confusing until I went back and looked at it. I should have clarified.

Hey @Dylan Haines

Welcome to BP and the world of real estate investing! I'm a Realtor and an investor and I would be happy to help you out. I do 2-4 rehabs per year through my company and I try to collect as many rentals as I can. I represent a lot of retail buyer and sellers, but I work with an awful lot of investors and I understand that aspect very well. You do need to be careful in making certain that your Realtor and lender understand the FHA and VA processes. I help a lot of young people buy with FHAs and a lot of my rehabs end up being bought with VA funds. Charleston is a great market. We're experiencing a lot of growth pretty soon and there is a lot of opportunity here. With that being said, this can also be a very competitive market because of the number of people moving here and the fact that we keep winning all of these "best city" awards.

I would keep digging through BP as far as education goes. There are some beginner's guides here. Brandon and Josh have also authored books with other people that are available to purchase and they're absolutely worth the money. You can find those on Amazon. I would go through Amazon and pick out a bunch of $1.00 books that you can download in the beginning. A lot of them are redundant, but they'll stamp the basics into your head. Then you can start reading more in-depth books. You should also read a few entrepreneurial books that will help you with mindset and productivity.

As far as the property stuff goes, I would definitely utilize that VA loan, if you can. You're correct that VA loans are very stringent. Essentially, any rehab property is pretty much off the table for either the VA or FHA. If you can find something that is just outdated, you could use the FHA or VA, but you're probably not going to get much of a deal if it's just an outdated home. I would utilize that VA or FHA to try to get into a 2-4 unit with little money down. You're probably young enough that you can wait a while until that property starts to really generate some income. At the very least, you can live for very cheap. In most cases, you need cash or assets to leverage to be very successful with purchasing, rehabbing and selling homes. You should read something like the book on investing in real estate with no and low money down by Brandon Turner to try to find some clever ways to invest without a lot of cash. Start trying to network with some private money lenders and start chatting up your circle of influence if you're interested in finding a PML. Everyone has a rich uncle somewhere. The big thing is not to analyze things so much that you paralyze yourself. You need to make yourself actionable items each day and work to complete them until you find yourself diving in.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions!

My old brokerage did a lot of work with folks who own vacation rentals. One of the agents also owns a vacation rental company that he and his wife run. It's mostly VR management for other people, but you should reach out to him. I'd be happy to help you or your friend find something, but I would suggest that you have some one like this guy help you manage it. They know the market very well as far as rents, specials and marketing go. He has some clients that make an absolute killing on their properties on Isle of Palms and Sullivans Island. His name is Mel and his site is https://exclusivepropertiesus.com

@Amy NguyenThat should be immensely helpful. We started getting pretty angry about it. I sent a lot of strongly-worded emails. Just stay on them. Eventually they'll have to just resolve it if they want to move on. 

Hey @David Jonesand welcome to BP. You're in the right place. I would definitely take a look at some of the stuff that @Russ Scheideris doing. He's got a lot of great strategies and information. I'm also a Realtor and I'd be happy to help you out if you ever find yourself needing an agent. You should listed to some of the podcasts and start going through some of BP's new investor information and resources.

There's quite a few on the MLS. I've been looking at some very high-end multi-families downtown for someone and there are always some semi-urban and rural ones. If you want to DM me your email and criteria, I can send you a list.

I just recently had an annoying Sect 8 deal. Some folks I work with found a rental that they wanted to add to the portfolio. I helped them buy it and the transaction went pretty well throughout escrow. I had a terrible time getting ahold of the listing agent or the seller throughout the whole thing, though. Once we finally closed, the attorney did not know what day the Housing Authority dispersed checks and they couldn't get ahold of them. Then there was an issue on the HUD and the sellers wasn't able to be there because he had a minor surgery. He had already signed all of his docs, but since we made a change, we had to get a new signature from him. By the time he finally signed, the rent had been dispersed by the HA. We had 0 idea where the security deposit was and the property wasn't managed. We also needed the seller to sign a HA doc to transfer landlord rights, but the one that we were sent was wrong, so then we had to add the new one to the list of things we needed from him. I had to get the attorney to call the guy over and over while I tried to get the listing agent to answer (who was very unhelpful). I even tried to track the guy down on Facebook. Finally, my client saw that his number was scribble on the old lease that we were sent and she was able to get ahold of him herself. He was actually very nice and was able to get the form to her, the security deposit and the remainder of that month's rent. I would suggest that you try to find out exactly which HA that property is jurisdicted through and try to reach a supervisor. Most of the people we talked to just pushed their pencils and didn't care about our issue at all. I would also continue to get the attorney to hound them to try to find out what they can. It's sounds much more pressing when the attorney is calling them. Sorry for the long post. I just thought I should tell other folks thinking about Sect 8 that they need to do their due diligence to be absolutely sure that they have all of that stuff lined up before the closing date.