What would you do in my shoes?

Question

My first post!

My experience:

Fix and flipped sfh in 2012.  Made 27k, ~25% ROI.

Fix and Flip sfh in 2013.  Made 7k.  ~5% ROI.

Bought a rental sfh with two partners in 2013.  Earning ~13% ROI/year.

current Situation:

I'm in the middle of fixing up a new house that I'll be moving into.  Once I'm in, I'll be selling my current house.

Assets:

Once my current house is sold, I'll have about 40k in cash.  In addition, I'll have 135k in my new house (ARV).  I'll own it free and clear. Other funds: I have access to about 15k on an insurance policy (~7% interest) and room on cc's (around 30k--I have been financing my deals using 0% apr promo offers for years now, which seems to work well for flips.) One issue is that my regular job is only part time, and I earn about 12k per year, so conventional lending is difficult.

So what would you do from this point to build long term wealth?  I'm still living kinda poorly, trying to keep all my money available for investing. I'm considering lots of options--buying a tri plex or four plex, or other means of stable income.  I've been doing one project at a time, but I think I'm ready to start doing multiple deals.  Do I have enough cash for that?  Do I Moving towards foreclosures?  One issue I have is that I've been buying and selling off the mls, and while that seems alright, it also takes months to land a workable deal in my market. (Louisville ky). So that stretches out the flip time.  Tax liens?  More rentals?  SBA loan for more money?

I'm wide open to suggestions.

Frank

Frank D'Amato · Answer

Michael,

I use the promo offers on the credit cards.  For example, my Discover card offered 'balance transfer' with a 0 % APR for fifteen months. (I put balance transfer in quote, because they will actually transfer the cash directly to your bank account.) All I had to pay was a three percent transaction fee.  Sometimes they charge 4%, depends on the offer. I've been doing this without a problem for the last four years, though they may be changing the rules around this soon.  Hard to tell.

Anyway, it's been great for flips, because the promo period is definitely less than the turnaround for a flip from start to finish.  Between a few cards, I've been able to finance around 50k this way for my first projects. Hope that answers your question.

Michael J. · Answer

Hello welcome to BP. It sounds like you are on the right track. I know some people in SI that buy all cash at sheriff sales on a regular basis and get good deals. That may be a good option to find good deals to fix and sell. Do you work with a agent that has more detailed access to the MLS and can generate automated lists to email you based on specific criteria? After listening to a lot of the podcasts on BP I was surprised at how many people consistently find good deals on the MLS.

I am about to start the process of finding my first fix and sell property in SI, if you don't mind me asking when you say 0% apr promo offers is that using a credit card or is there a lender in the area that will loan on rehab type properties?

I have heard of using a credit card to generate start up money but have not looked into that myself, curious how that would work.

Frank D'Amato · Answer

Michael,

Can't seem to access any properties. Perhaps they aren't listed yet?  Or am I missing something?  (I'm typing in different zip codes, or anything really, but it's not returning any properties. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?)

Michael Seeker · Answer

Have you checked out the commissioner's sales?

http://www.jeffcomm.org/upcoming-sales.html

I usually search this by zip code.  If you've got any questions about how to go through the whole process let me know.

Also welcome to BP - you've found a great resource!