All Forum Posts by: Will Chamberlin

Hi @Jake Kodweis, welcome and great to have you on BP. I grew up just east of rochester and lived in the park ave area for a few years. Awesome neighborhood. I saw a 3 fam in the heart of the action for $120k back in 1996 but didn't buy it. Bad move on my part. It feels to me that your target price is kind of low for there unless you find something that needs a ton of work but you only have $7k for repairs. A roof will cost you more than that and every investment property I have purchased has needed a roof. Maybe if you go across goodman or monroe there are cheaper deals. I haven't been active in the neighborhood for a few years. If you want to talk to my buddy how would know just send me a message. He has lived in the the park ave neighborhood for 20 years or so and had a bunch of houses and a laundromat at one point.

Have you run your numbers on a bunch of properties from the MLS? It will help you figure out if you are close to your targets and any deal you get off-MLS should be even better.

If budget is really the main issue, it sounds like the 'easiest' thing is to come up with a side hustle that will generate the $3k for you. Short term pain but don't let the deal fall apart over a small budgeting error. Or maybe a friends and family round of funding, just skip the friends.

Hi Matt,

You can do the whole thing with hosting from somewhere cheap for $5 - $10/month. If you don't care about the domain name being completely branded, it could be free. I used a free WP theme (make sure it is responsive to easily handle mobile) and just put my info in it. There are a ton of free contact form plug-ins that you can install to handle that part. The main cost for websites is in design so if you aren't as worried about high-end creative you can get away with tweaking the free theme a little to suit your needs. Happy to help out if you try it and get stuck, just let me know. 

I just had Brett Smith from Fred Smith roofing do 3 SFH for me in the cuse (Tipp Hill & Westvale). Tear off, ridge vents, GAF Timberline HD shingles. Pricing was pretty good and he has been a good communicator which is huge as I am on the opposite coast. No affiliation with them other than happy with the work and my family has used them in the past.

That's a great story. Congrats on the last 3 years and here's to many more good ones for you.

@Lee Smith, a good floor guy should be able to fix this if the rest of the floors are in good shape. The guy I use has a stockpile of random pieces and was able to splice in some 'new' wood to replace an old cold air return. It didn't cost much extra, just a couple hours of labor. I would ask and see what the cost is. Compare that and the refinish price against another surface and see what it more cost effective/looks better for what you are trying to do. Fair point by @Colleen F. about not being able to just go buy new wood for this. You may be able to hit the salvage places and find similar wood for them to work in and save some money there. I am a big fan of keeping the real hardwoods and refinishing since they handle abuse really well and keep the original character of the house.

Hi @Jean-francois Ndomb, I did not pay cash. I went 20% down from a HELOC on my primary residence and then financed the rest with conventional 30 yr fixed loans due in 15. The bigger loan is @ 4% and the smaller one is at 4.25%. Both loans were through my credit union. With the cash flow we are going to pay down the HELOC so we can repeat in the future.

Hi Rey, I think that really depends on your comfort level. I buy in areas that are not appreciating so I would probably keep looking until I found something better. Do you have any advantages on the rehab side that would decrease your costs? If so then maybe you can go 80% LTV and still make money. It all depends on your risk/reward analysis and will be different for every market and deal.

Hey team, just wanted to close the loop and update this thread with the results. It was a crazy couple of weeks in the 'cuse but I mostly got things done. I left a list with my contractor and he cleaned up all the loose ends for me. I would have done it myself and saved some cash but I just ran out of time. I figured it was worth writing about so I made a couple blog posts.

http://www.chamberlinprops.com/2016/04/26/31-sfh-c...

http://www.chamberlinprops.com/2016/04/26/sfh-hud-...

Also, we are currently screening tenants but have had a lot of interest in both houses and looks like we will be getting $1400 for the one in the good school district and $1150 for the bargain house. 

On to the next deal and thanks for your support on BP!

Nice work! Those numbers looks very close to what I am hoping for in 10 months from now on the house I just bought and rented out.