Contractor · Portland, OR · Member since 2015 · 7 posts · 3 votes
Hello everyone,
my name is Emilie and my husband is David. We have been looking to invest in real-estate for the last 6 years but never took the plunge - we have read a ton of books, watch a ton of videos etc....
My husband is a contractor and he is helping flippers renovating their investment ; I love driving around town going to open house and I am "interior decorator" at art.... so we decided that this year to we should really do it.
I am digital marketing manager for a luxury automotive dealership and I am planning to pass my real estate license in the next 90 days. I have been in sales, advertising and media planning for the last 12 years.
My husband was in the construction battalion (sea-bees) in the Navy and is a master inspector in Concrete and Metal construction. He has been renovating houses for the last 3 years.
We are currently living in our second fixer-upper which we are planning to stay for the next 10 years.
We are looking for hard-money lenders. We both have excellent credit, assets, the tools, hands and brains to make real-estate projects happen in a fast and profitable way.
I am looking forward to learn from people who have the experience and meeting new partners.
you and your husband have the perfect skill set to flip homes in Portland. Keeping construction costs down and design are two very important factors to making $ in the Portland market. The right design in the right location can create some serious value. What parts of town were your two recent purchases? Where has your husband been doing flip rehabs? Have you been watching any specific rehabbers in our market? It's always exciting having projects going on, although sometimes it's hard to keep the excitement from turning into being anxious.
You should come check out our RareBird meetings at the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village. You'll meet like minded individuals. Some of them right here from BP. One new investor recently quite his day job due to success he's been having. You'll find a range of individuals great for networking with (wholesalers, flippers, builders, developers, landlords, brokers, etc..).
You will keep experiencing this type of frustration if you are looking for deals on the RMLS. Portland is not like the East. It is highly competitive and inventory is very low. Those factors combined with the RMLS will make for a very frustrating time. If there is a fixer property on the RMLS, its probably not a deal. Deals are made across the kitchen table, face to face with a seller. Not back and forth through realtors.
You need to find a way to start networking with wholesalers, lenders, and start marketing direct to sellers. Going to the Rarebird Investor Network is a good place to start. A lack of time is simply a lack of priority. If one of you can manage to take one day off (or more) per week to devote to yourself's and your futures then you should absolutely do that.
Funding will come when a deal comes, make sure you don't use that as an excuse for non-action. Same thing with what you said about a fear of losing your assets. Are you going to be using a large portion of your own cash? You will find that in the near future as you stay in this business longer that fear will go away. If you feel like a deal is "Risky" then its not a deal. You do not need to be a risk take. In fact you should not be. If you are taking uncalculated risks then it is simply gambling or betting. Investing involves managing risk to an absolute minimum, calculating it precisely and NEVER risking your personal assets.
As someone new to the business I would not recommend doing something complicated like a subdivision or lot confirmation. However, a good strategy would be to rent it as you do the lot confirmation as it will take 6 months or more.
That JV proposition sounds like a horrible deal for you. A 15% profit share on most deals might be less than what you could get for a wholesale fee. Since you are new there is no problem with giving up some profit for experience and guidance but giving up 85% is not good. You and your husband sound much more qualified than the average person getting into this business. You are already ahead of the game. I would suggest an absolute minimum of 40% of the profit. Be EXTREMELY cautious of who you choose to partner with.
Also, one more note. If you do decide to keep looking for deals exclusively on the RMLS (please dont do that) then you need to build relationships with MULTIPLE realtors and you will definitely need to get your financing in order. Actually, we all should have relationships with multiple realtors regardless of our method for locating deals.
Set some aggressive and achievable goals and be persistent, persistent, persistent, persistent.