All Forum Posts by: Zach Gard

Hi Payten! Welcome to the SB investor community. My response will likely be a little controversial based on what level of risk others are willing to take on but thought I would offer some insight regardless. If I were in your position, I would work like crazy including any OT and side jobs you can pick up to build your nest egg first. You have an advantage over a lot of other folks right now in that you are living for free which gives you a golden opportunity to be able to pay off your car as quickly as possible and boost your savings account. Once you have a healthy amount for a down payment, then you can engage financing companies who will, at that point, look at your strong personal financial position where you have no debt and money in the bank, and they will be happy to approve you. At that point, look for a house hack that needs normal cosmetic repairs (flooring/paint/patching drywall/etc) but DO NOT take on a full gut job where it needs everything (roof/structure repairs/outdated electrical/ancient furnace/etc). Once you locate the property, reach out to your buddies and have them agree they will live in that location with you and pull the trigger. Good luck! 

Congratulations on your first deal in beautiful VA!

I have experience with infrared scanning and depending on the type of property and how you intend to use it, the scans can prove to be beneficial, mainly for your utility bill. The most important feedback you will get is how your property is performing from a controlled climate perspective. What I mean by that is the scan will show you how well your property is retaining cool air. If the scan shows huge voids in the exterior envelope, it likely means you are missing insulation or thermal bridging is occurring (materials installed against each other dissipating air).

My two cents- if you are planning on paying for a large portion of the heating / cooling portion of the utility bill, spring for the scan so you can button up the property prior to running the A/C more than you need to and in the long term wasting money. If your plan is to always have tenants pay for the utilities, it's a shared cost for them and likely not a huge deal. If their bill gets too high, I'm guessing they will call and complain which will effectively answer the question on the climate controlled environment. Good luck!

Thanks for the warm welcome @Kyle Jiron. Would be glad to connect and swap war stories sometime! APM life is a grind (saw your profile) I’m sure there are hours of comedic relief we can share together! 

No problem at all @Michael Garofalo , glad to help. Happy to hear the project is coming to a close, I know how difficult it can be in the final stretch to close out a job. I’ll PM you shortly. 

Welcome to BP @Rebecca Ramos! Thanks for the encouragement, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help out as we both jump into the RE sector 

Thanks Michael Garofalo ! Sorry to hear about your contractor difficulties, it seems that far too often folks in my industry struggle to perform, especially in the residential arena. I do have experience with new residential construction but very little in the world of rehabs. I’d be interested to know what hurdles you gents are encountering and glad to offer up some help. A couple small pieces of advice when selecting contractors I would offer which is used in the commercial world is to always make sure you have (3) bids per job and level their scopes of work to make sure they are ‘apples to apples’. When you know who is the most cost-effective, put them under contract including their exact scope of work as an exhibit along with a construction schedule that you both agree to that they initial as a separate exhibit. As the project progresses, if they aren’t hitting their milestones within the agreed upon schedule, ask them how they are going to accelerate their work and submit to you a recovery schedule to remedy. You could even go a step further when generating the contract and create monetary incentives for hitting milestone dates (i.e. $300 bonus if roofing is done before July 1)

Thanks @Redgy Saint-Germain ! Boston is a great town, I'm sure there are a ton of unique opportunities up your way 

Thank you for your feedback @Russell Brazil , I will definitely check into the local ordinances.

I actually listened to your podcast #192 yesterday which had a ton of great info. It's partially the reason I decided to finally hop on the forums and start contributing so thank you sir!

Hello BP community! After listening to hundreds of hours on the podcast and reading through the forums, I decided it was time to jump in and introduce myself / make my first post. This is a great network of folks and I'm looking forward to engaging in the forums and ultimately meeting some of you if there are any in-person networking opportunities forthcoming in the D.C. metro area. 

A little about me is that I'm new to investing but have years of experience in the commercial general contracting world which is what I currently do full time in D.C. If you have any questions about large scale construction processes, I'm happy to help. 

My immediate initial goal, similar to many others on the forums, was to purchase a multifamily in the area and house hack but it unfortunately seems that the supply & demand in the D.C. / Northern Virginia market is way too saturated to make that strategy worthwhile. That being said, the new goal is to find a SFH that can cover the mortgage while I save for more properties and ultimately provide positive cash flow when I decide to move out in the future. The icing on the cake would be divided living quarters between myself and other renters (i.e. in-law suite or second living space within the home).

My long term goal is to acquire enough long term buy-and-hold cash flowing rentals (SFH or Multi, depends on the market as this progresses) to replace my salaried income and ultimately, achieve FI.

Looking forward to meeting some of you. See you around!