Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
I invest in Joliet IL which is a somewhat low income area of older homes. I bought this house for 40K, put 20K into it and brought it up to our standards for a rental. We have a new tenant moving in within a week. The renovation took about 2 months because the holidays slowed us down a bit. But all in all, I'm really excited. We are getting $1400 a month. Ready for the next deal.
Rental Property Investor · Shorewood, IL · Member since 2016 · 80 posts · 46 votes
9y
Great news! Congrats! Hope you can make good numbers in Joliet. I've watched the area houses for a while but wasn't confident that it's a good area. We just bought our first Turnkey property in the South Deering area on the South side of Chicago 2 months ago and have a Sec8 tenant in place already.
This is our 3rd rental in Joliet and all 3 are turning up as good investments so far. We have 4 rentals total and will be selling the out of state home this summer and using the proceeds to buy more in Joliet. One of the big concerns (there are definitely more than one) in Joliet is the age of the homes. We try to make sure our buy in is low and we resolve any big issues up front. We replaced all the windows on each house and with this last one, we replaced the roof and all flooring as well as a few other things to bring it up to a nicer standard. Its one way to mitigate unexpected issues in the future. The first one was a huge learning experience but it turned out well. It really tested our commitment. I think it was one of those properties that would have broken people that are not really cut out for this. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. But it made us hungrier for more and I love investing in the Joliet area.
Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
9y
Two are west Joliet. One is south east. The good deals are harder to come by than 2 years ago. Just gotta keep your eyes open and be willing to make lots of offers
Rental Property Investor · Shorewood, IL · Member since 2016 · 80 posts · 46 votes
9y
@Nathan Waters, yea..our turnkey was a complete teardown to the studs. New electric, plumbing, roof, heating. My wife and I still have full time jobs and don't have the time or experience to do the work ourselves or know any good contractors yet so we went with a good turnkey company. I know we paid a good chunk extra but the renter is covering the payments and we have about a 14% ROI on it. Not sure I'll do more in IL just due to the state funding crisis/death-spiral our state gov't is in. I've got one left in high school and then we may consider getting out ourselves.
Rental Property Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2015 · 31 posts · 4 votes
9y
Way to go @Nathan Waters! Looks like you have recently started. Can you share your deal criteria and what deal acquisition strategies are working best for you? I am mostly looking for deals in MLS but haven't come across good ones lately.
Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
9y
@Asif I. & @Matthew Murphy, The 3 in Joliet were off the MLS. The out of state rental that I have was my previous home and I kept it as a rental but will be selling it this summer. I've been managing the one long distance rental for 7-8 years but the 3 here locally are recent. I bought 2 in 2015 and one back in November 2016. As far as purchasing, two of them were paid cash. I used savings, a loan from my 401K, and a personal loan from SOFI to pay for the 2 houses and the renovation costs. I did cash out refinance on both homes after 6 months and used proceeds to pay back the loan and as a fund for the down payment and rehab costs for the recent home. My lender says I need to wait 12 months before they will cash out refinance this most recent one. It has about 30-40K in available equity above the current mortgage so I'm anxious to pull that out and do another deal.
Real Estate Agent · Naperville, IL · Member since 2013 · 402 posts · 177 votes
9y
@Nathan Waters Joliet has some great opportunities, awesome that you were able to find a couple! I know an investor who's primarily only in Joliet and he loves it. We actually are closing on a 4 bd/1.5 bath next month here in Naperville. Need to start looking elsewhere as deals are becoming very hard to find this way. @Andrew Hargreave mind sharing which turnkey company you used? Think that may be the way my wife and I go for the next property.
Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
9y
Naperville would probably be better for flipping based on the relatively high prices. I don't have the stomach for flipping at this time. I like the get rich slow strategy of buy and hold
Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
9y
@Jonathan Frausto, We closed a week before thanksgiving day. We have been marketing for about 3 weeks. We could have probably got someone in within 6-8 weeks but the holidays slowed us down a bit. We also priced it very agressively to try to attract section 8 tenants. It took a while to get someone in there but we are going to have what looks to be a very long term tenant. So we're really excited.
Melrose Park, IL · Member since 2015 · 88 posts · 30 votes
9y
That's awesome yes joliet is definitely hot. I just leased out one of the units. Phone went crazy vm filled up. Keep up the good work
All my joliet investors. What's the average rental for a 2/1 unit. Im at 800. Just wanted to see where everyone is at.
Melrose Park, IL · Member since 2015 · 88 posts · 30 votes
9y
Im guessing its a SFH right
For some reason I was thinking apartment that's the 800 a month a was talking about.
I got a SFH @ 1500 month they pay all utilities as well. By the pictures on ur website I think its close to mine.
Rental Property Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2015 · 31 posts · 4 votes
9y
@Nathan Waters Thanks for the insights! good to know MLS is not dead yet. If you come across a deal and would like to wholesale, let me know. I am building my portfolio on buy and hold in the suburbs with the BRRRR strategy!
Northern, CA · Member since 2014 · 674 posts · 444 votes
9y
@Nathan Waters find a new lender, no need to wait 12 months when plenty will do it in 6. I'm seasoning one right now, I'm 3 months in. I'll start the refinance process in 4-6 weeks so the loan can close in 6 months + 1 day.
Rental Property Investor · St Joseph, MI · Member since 2015 · 302 posts · 106 votes
9y
@Asif I., I'll keep in touch if I come across anything.
@Lee S., Thanks for the advice. I am looking at other commercial lenders in the area. Again, these houses are really cheap and for the most part I can pay cash for them, but I just spent my reserves on the rehab of the recent one so I need to build it back up again. Hopefully I'll be able to put something together in the next two months or so.