All Forum Posts by: Zach L.

Hey Robert, welcome to the forums!

I'm a little biased, but I think house hacking is a great way to start. I'm not sure what your budget or employment history looks like, but assuming you're able to qualify for a low down payment loan, you should be able to save on what you would ordinarily spend on rent, even if you're not able to fully cover the mortgage. And you'd get amazing experience along the way. Best of luck with however you decide to proceed!

Hi Charissa,

You are definitely right; most of the properties for sale out there are not deals, whether or not they are foreclosures. To find a good deal, you will most likely have to do some leg work to beat out other investors also searching in your area. 

A few suggestions; 

• It may be better to find properties that are in pre-foreclosure, that way you can try to work with the current owner to make a favorable deal rather than working with a bank. 
• Drive/walk the neighborhood to find properties that look vacant/unkempt and do a little research to find out who the owner is and see if they can be interested in selling. You may be surprised and an absentee owner of a vacant property may be willing to get rid of their property to you for below market value.
• Keep researching how much rehabs will cost so you can be equipped to quickly analyze properties that come your way.  

Best of luck!

Originally posted by @Ben M.:

Thanks Zach. I am working with wholesalers and they do not allow inspection contingencies. Do some wholesalers allow inspection contingencies?

I think it would depend on how hot of a market you are dealing with. If there aren't many people interested in the property, a wholesaler would have to consider an offer that has an inspection contingency otherwise they risk holding the property longer than they anticipated.

However, if you're in a hot market (and who isn't these days), you may be competing with people who are willing to go after the property so aggressively that they drop all contingencies; this would represent less risk to the wholesaler of the buyer backing out so naturally they would likely choose this offer over yours with contingencies.

If you're finding that all deals you're coming across do not allow contingencies, it may be valuable to spend some time learning how to expertly predict repair costs on your own so you can determine if a deal is a good one without paying for inspections before getting it under contract. (Here's a link to J Scott's book on the subject if you haven't picked it up already)

Hey Ben,

Are you not allowed to have an inspection contingency in your offer? If you can, I wouldn't spend the money on an inspection or anything like that until you can get it under contract with an inspection contingency. Then you have recourse to back out later or renegotiate if the inspection finds problems beyond what your offer expected.

If you can't have an offer accepted on this property with an inspection contingency, maybe this just isn't the best property for you at this time. I know there are some people who are pretty confident in their abilities to spot a deal and close on it without an inspection, but that's definitely outside of my expertise!

My first thought would be to have a property manager put a lock box near the front door of the property. That way, the contractors and other workers you & the property management company trust can have easy access to do the renovations.

Congratulations on the new acquisition! Sounds like you're on your way to killing the game :)

Hello!

I am new to real estate investing and am currently exploring options for how I can purchase my first investment property. After listening to the Biggerpockets podcast show 70 with Grant Kemp, I have become interested in the idea of acquiring a small MFR in pre-foreclosure, subject to its current financing, which I would then househack; I figure if I am able to take over the payments for a homeowner facing foreclosure, I'd be able to create a win-win situation: the homeowner won't be foreclosed on and I'll have my first investment property at a lower price than most other MFRs in Los Angeles.

I'm wondering if anyone has used this strategy to househack and what has your experience been with the method (bonus points if you did this in the LA area)?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hey Aeron, welcome to BiggerPockets!

It's awesome that you know what you want to do this early in life. Just stay motivated and I'm sure you'll be successful.

One tip I can give you is there are great resources to learn about real estate investing online for free. BiggerPockets is a great one. I'm also a big fan of audiobooks since they are pretty convenient to listen to when you have free time. If you're able to spend a little bit per month to get an Audible membership, check out the books ublished by BiggerPockets as well as the books people mention on the podcast. A cheaper alternative would be to search on YouTube for real estate audiobooks which people have uploaded for free; the selection is smaller than Audible, but you can't beat the price.

Hi Stephany, welcome to the community! I'm a novice college student just like you and I feel Bigger Pockets has been enormously helpful at keeping me motivated toward financial freedom. One thing I would suggest is downloading the Meetup app and joining some real estate clubs. Many of the big ones around here are pretty much just sales pitches, but some of them are actually very insightful and thoughtful. Let me know if you would like any recommendations!

Hey Antoine! I'm also 22 and am currently in college. While I have yet to do any deals, I am learning as much as I can to change that. I'd love to hear how you are navigating the Los Angeles investing scene, let me know if you're ever interested in connecting!

Really great show guys 
I listened on my drive to work today and there was so much useful information I had to re-listen later to take notes, especially for the portion on analyzing markets. 

Thanks for the great content guys!