life as a new investor

Life is good!

I haven't posted in a while. Thanks to those that have requested updates. I now have two SFH's rented out, and am closing another one on Monday that I'm going to flip. Here are the numbers...

house #1

purchase price: $22.5k

rehab cost: $14k

total investment: 36.5k rent: $750/month

house #2

purchase price: $30k rehab cost: $6k total investment: $36k rent: $950/month

closing on Monday on a 4/2 SFH in a nicer neighborhood. Purchase price: $35k. renovation cost $15k. Will list for $115k, should sell for around $100k.

My rentals have been going well, tenants pay on time...can't compain! A special thanks to Mike OH for providing his business model which I use everyday!

Hope your investing is going as well as mine. I'm not starting big, but I'm getting it done!

Offer accepted!

Just received a call from my realtor. The bank accepted my offer. Here are the numbers...

purchase price: $30,000

rehab cost: $7000

monthly rent: $950

ARV: $75000

it's a 5 bedroom, 2 bedroom house. I'm trying to gain a lockhold on all the 4 bathroom houses in my target market. They get rented very quickly, and so I want to drive the price up a bit if I can get a hold of enough of them. Close at the end of July, probably will take me a month or so to do the rehab. I think I'm addicted to this whole real estate thing! :o)

boring rental property...

Well, I haven't posted in a while. Mainly because my rental property is boring. I received one call last week to fix a leak in the kitchen sink drain. That's been it. NO eviction, no 2 A.M. water leak call, no stuffed toilet.

I am disappionted that I haven't been able to buy more properties, however. Investors are grabbing these SFH's before they come into my price range. With the exception of one that I'm making an offer on. it's a 5/2 SFH....and is VERY big. I may just flip it. Asking price is $36k. I can get $975/month in rent for it. Needs about $10k in repair...less if I rent it out. We'll see what the bank counters at on my offer.

Anyone for 100% financing?

Yesterday was an interesting day. It started out by working my day job. Afterwards I played with the kids a little bit, and headed off to my rental property to hook up the stove. I went to Home Depot to pick up the parts, then headed over to the property. I quickly hooked up the stove and went in the basement to put a sink in my storage room. The sink was given to me for free over the weekend, so I'll just hold on to it until I need it. I then heard a car door. I looked out the basement window, expecting to see the tenants car. It was not their car. A minivan was parked directly behind my truck. I watched the people get out and go to the neighbor's house. So I grabbed my pipe wrench and headed out to my truck. I made a mental note of the license plate, make and model of the van, just in case. Two men approached me and asked "you buy houses?". turns out they saw the signs I just put on my truck that I buy houses. Relieved, I followed them to a duplex that they are selling. They bought it a year ago and are tired of rehabbing. Unfortunately they paid too much money for it, so my offer was really low. But maybe they'll think about it and come down on their price.

All of this happened when I was supposed to be at our rental property association meeting. I decided to head over, despite being an hour late. Turned out to be a really good decision. Last night was our "vendor fair". At the fair was a local bank. I introduced myself to the loan officer and started asking questions. Turns out, they will do 100% financing with no minimums, no limits on number of units, limited seasoning, and really good rates (5.65%). This is great! I spent a lot of time discussing real estate with the loan officer. The owner of the bank is a HUGE real estate investor in the area. So they understand the business. On a handshake and a smile, they offered me 100% financing for my rental property (subject to my tax returns and financial statement, which is no problem at all). They knew the area well enough to know the estimated value of the property, and they will go 70% LTV of the VALUE, not the amount that I'm in on it. The moral of the story is that you CAN get good financing if you work at it.

Happy hunting

Bee discrimination!

Well, after a little research, Norm was right! He commented on my last post. They are wood burrowing bees. I found the telltale 1/2" whole that looks like it was drilled with a wood bit! So I covered up the hole, and I haven't found any more. I'll be there this weekend to see if any have escaped. There's lots of info on the internet about these bees. Basically they are not aggressive, not real damaging to the wood (when compared to termites) and easy to get rid of. The males don't even have stingers. I think they should file a discrimination lawsuit! LOL

Hope to do some roofing this weekend, but we'll see if the weather cooperates. in the meantime, I'll be looking at two duplexes for sale in the area. They are listed on the MLS and already fall within the 50% guideline with an asking price of $49k. However, in this market I will try to get them for around 37-40k with monthly income of just over $1000. Cash offers make it a bit easier. Overall, I won't settle for a good deal, I want a GREAT deal!

INVASION!!!

As I stated in previous posts, the inside of my rental is completed. I've been going over there periodically in my spare time to work on the outside of the house. I've been noticing that there have been bumble bees (just a few) in the laundry room. I've removed them as I see them. Yesterday there were four more! I'm not really sure where they're coming from. There is a crawl space under that part of the house, and I don't hear or see anything in there. The total number removed is 7. I'm hoping that there aren't too many more. I'm scheduled to go out there again on Saturday to work on some roofing. I'll take a look and see. The tenants, although they are paying for this month, don't physically move in for another couple weeks.