- BiggerPockets Community Manager
- Colorado Springs, CO
- 857
- Votes |
- 693
- Posts
Do you have any recent Real Estate Success Stories?
BiggerPockets has created a new Subcategory to celebrate your Real Estate Success Stories!
Did you close a deal recently? Maybe your FIRST deal?!
Did you just finish a BiggerPockets Bootcamp or Book and want to share?📚
Or maybe you just finished up a value add project that you want to show off?🛠️
Post your Real Estate Wins and take some time to celebrate how far you have come in your real estate journey!👏
#2 House Hacking Contributor
- Real Estate Agent
- Los Angeles, CA
On one of my properties that I bought out of state, my Realtor and I negotiated the price by 50%, and in the process of doing the cash out refi which will put an extra $50,000 more in my pocket than what I initially invested (since some of the money came from my 1031 exchange). And it will cash flow!!!
After selling real estate for 20+ years, my husband and I finally purchased a flip property in the Bucks County, PA area. He's a union plumber and I'm an agent. We have years of experience working with investors flipping homes but we finally bought one ourselves. It took 18 months to close this off-market deal. We're finished with demo and permits have been approved. We can't wait to start the remodel!
@Rick Albert Love this! Best wishes to you.
#1 Personal Finance Contributor
- Rental Property Investor
- East Wenatchee, WA
- 15,916
- Votes |
- 10,165
- Posts
#1 Personal Finance Contributor
- Rental Property Investor
- East Wenatchee, WA
Successfully exited out of 90% of my portfolio with minimal transaction costs and minimal tax consequences. Wins can be on the other side, too👍
Quote from @Cathy Waslenko Anderson:Congrats! Just curious, why did it take so long to close?
After selling real estate for 20+ years, my husband and I finally purchased a flip property in the Bucks County, PA area. He's a union plumber and I'm an agent. We have years of experience working with investors flipping homes but we finally bought one ourselves. It took 18 months to close this off-market deal. We're finished with demo and permits have been approved. We can't wait to start the remodel!
Hello,
I wanted some help regarding my recent post.
Kindly comment and lemme know your views on the topic.
https://www.biggerpockets.com/...
Thanks :)
Quote from @Ran Iarovich:
I'm a real estate agent also balancing school at 19. I'm yet to become a full fledged investor but I just closed on my first property not too long ago. $1.2m in the Eastside of Washington. Can't thank my team and my Bigger Pockets community enough for all the help and input!
Balancing school and work can be difficult! Congratulations on closing on your first property!
Quote from @Jorge Esteban Vargas:
Quote from @Cathy Waslenko Anderson:Congrats! Just curious, why did it take so long to close?
After selling real estate for 20+ years, my husband and I finally purchased a flip property in the Bucks County, PA area. He's a union plumber and I'm an agent. We have years of experience working with investors flipping homes but we finally bought one ourselves. It took 18 months to close this off-market deal. We're finished with demo and permits have been approved. We can't wait to start the remodel!
The owner was in a nursing home for 4 years. Her daughter was tasked with cleaning it out and selling it. The placed hadn't been cleaned for 50 years (no joke) and was filled with a lifetime of stuff that the daughter had to deal with. The daughter was a bit of a hoarder herself and had filled the garage 6 feet high. She refused to throw anything out! My husband and I agreed to help her move the belongings to a storage unit near the daughter's house an hour away. This way she wasn't rushed to go through everything. All in all we took 3 trips with a 24' enclosed trailer and filled up 2 large storage units. It took a lot of time and energy, but we finally got her out. We closed 10 days later. Do what it takes!
@Noah Bacon I just closed on a TERRIBLY mismanaged 8 unit. Rents are around $550 including heat while going market rent is $1100 plus heat. The listing agent started showing it without completing the listing and after 3 weeks of waiting for it to go live I told my buyer broker to write up and present my offer. He balked and said that’s not how it’s done. We went back and forth for two days with me insisting people make off-market offers all the time until he agreed to do it. He gave the offer to the listing agent who panicked because he was going to lose a lot of face as he had showed the building to about 10 times but their managing broker said for him to present it to the seller. It was accepted.
I am now repositioning my 8 unit which by mid-October I expect will have increased in value by over $300,000. I then expect to refinance it and buy 2-3 more buildings.
The tenants were neglected for so many years they have been very needy so far but I expect once they settle in with responsive management that will settle down.
- BiggerPockets Community Manager
- Colorado Springs, CO
- 857
- Votes |
- 693
- Posts
Quote from @Alecia Loveless:
@Noah Bacon I just closed on a TERRIBLY mismanaged 8 unit. Rents are around $550 including heat while going market rent is $1100 plus heat. The listing agent started showing it without completing the listing and after 3 weeks of waiting for it to go live I told my buyer broker to write up and present my offer. He balked and said that’s not how it’s done. We went back and forth for two days with me insisting people make off-market offers all the time until he agreed to do it. He gave the offer to the listing agent who panicked because he was going to lose a lot of face as he had showed the building to about 10 times but their managing broker said for him to present it to the seller. It was accepted.
I am now repositioning my 8 unit which by mid-October I expect will have increased in value by over $300,000. I then expect to refinance it and buy 2-3 more buildings.
The tenants were neglected for so many years they have been very needy so far but I expect once they settle in with responsive management that will settle down.
Wow! Talk about rents being under market value! I'm very excited to hear how you leverage your equity into more rentals as well. Keep it up, and keep us updated on your journey!
@Jay Hinrichs haha thats awesome!
@David Ebersole congrats! It's an amazing feeling to finally grab a multi !
I have a success story to share with you all, since I have learnt so much from this community and everyone here has been so helpful in my real estate journey.
I started my journey about 1.5 years back, read a bunch of books, used to religiously listen to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I developed my own cashflow calculator spreadsheet and started going on Zillow, exploring home after home, and crunching out numbers. I targeting the Austin and San Antonio area. But as you all now, real estate there is no longer priced like how it was a few years ago. According to my calculations, the best of the best properties were cash flowing negative at least $500. It was really frustrating not being able to find a single deal that made sense financially. Being a new investor, and that too out of state, I was not willing to invest in a fixer upper. I was primarily looking for turnkey properties which were ready to move in from day one. Long story short, I felt the paralysis by analysis, was on the sidelines for far too long, and had given up hope.
Just then, early this year in January, one of my buddies shared this deal with me, a Lennar community in Seguin, Texas, in a great school district, brand new construction at a very decent price point. Again, I did all my calculations, and this time the finances made sense. I jumped right in. It was nerve wrecking wiring in the 20% downpayment, but I took the leap of faith and hoped for the best. I closed on the home. Success! Well, not yet. I had to find a tenant.
It was a waiting game. Will I actually find a tenant who will pay the forecasted rent that I had estimated for my numbers to work? 2 months go by, still no tenant. My property management rep was super helpful during the process. I finally found a great family who were moving from out of town. They negotiated the rent down by $50 and requested a fridge to be installed in the home. I accepted the offer and got them to sign a 24 month lease. I am cash flowing positive ~$150 on the new construction, which is exactly what I was aiming for.
Of course it was not as easy as it sounds. It was months of fighting with the property management company and the builders to get things fixed in the house, more than $4500 spent in upgrades - blinds, irrigation, garage door opener, locks, refrigerator etc. But I am happy to have found some great tenants and made my first real estate investment. Wanted to share this with anyone still on the sidelines and waiting to make the move. Keep looking, just when you are about to give up, something will come along and it will be worth the wait. There are some good deals out there even in this market. Good luck!
Bought my first property in Nov 2022, completed a fairly extensive rehab, closed on my first personal property in March 2023 and just finished another big rehab and closed on my second rental on Wednesday. It's been a busy few months and it would have been possible without my knowledge from BP!
Congratulations and great job for sticking with it through this crazy real estate market.
My wife and I bought our very first investment property in Phoenix! Best part of the deal was that the property appraised for almost $70k over contract. I know there's a difference between an appraisal value and market value but a difference really reassured us that we were shopping with an "investor mentality".
Now we're working on getting the property ready to rent and gearing up for the next opportunity that we find!
@Ran Iarovich
Congratulations, Ran!
$1.2M property at 19 years old…you ARE an awesome 👏 investor.
How about majoring in finance with a specialization in real estate? 🙂
Quote from @Ran Iarovich:
I'm a real estate agent also balancing school at 19. I'm yet to become a full fledged investor but I just closed on my first property not too long ago. $1.2m in the Eastside of Washington. Can't thank my team and my Bigger Pockets community enough for all the help and input!
Did I get this right? You closed on a 1.2 mil deal at 19? That’s incredible! Good for you! How did you do that?
Daryn B
Last fall we purchased a house built in 1915 that needed a lot of work. New floors, new roof, new AC unit, all walls needed updating, ect. We purchased it using hard money because the bank wouldn't even look at it. We fixed it up and then got it rented. We were able to take the equity in the home and purchase the house next door without putting any of our money in. We have that property rented now and we were able to refinance the properties with a local bank after and now are making good cash flow. I am looking for another fixer upper but they are hard to find. As expensive as property is now, it's about the best way I have found to get in the game.
Ok... my first RE success was in 1994. I was a recent graduate and still living in a University town in California. I was more excited about real estate than graduate school, so took a chunk of money and bought a recently rebuilt (post-fire!) 5/3 super-rental in that university town. Strategy: I would take the primary bed+bath and 1 other bedroom, and then rent the other 3+2 to a group of students. House hacking isn't new. Purchase price was $145k as I recall. My first 3-4 years in that house I rented rooms out, then when I moved it became a long-term rental with great cash flow.
If your place in life supports house-hacking...it truly can be a powerful strategy.
I just finished alterations and leased my most recent house-hack. I purchased a home near St George UT, framed in a door, ran a power line and bought appliances. Now I'm living in the mother-in-law unit (has a garage, yard, kitchen, etc). I rented the 5 bed/2 bath section of the house for $2400, which covers 80% of my mortgage. I would be paying WAY more to rent an apartment the same size.
I also negotiated the price as I knew it was under valued ON THE MLS. With some recent sales comps, I now have about $100k in equity after being here for 2 months.
I put my commission towards the down payment, had seller pay closing costs, and now have only about $10,000 out of pocket including the alterations.
My Wife and I bought a one bedroom apartment in Florida during the pandemic and were able to get a 3.5% interest rate. After a year living in the apartment we rented it and are now getting close to $500 in cash flow every month. It is our first investment together and it has been an awsome experience.
@Jillyan MacMorris
How do you find tenant for each room? How about bath room??shared?
Quote from @Alex Deacon:
Just purchased a 4 unit and duplex in a great neighborhood in the Pittsburgh market. Our efforts to find deals is finally coming to fruition. we can then sell some of them and leave some equity for the next buyer and keep some of them for our own portfolio.
What areas of Pittsburgh are these properties in?
Quote from @Alex Deacon:
Just purchased a 4 unit and duplex in a great neighborhood in the Pittsburgh market. Our efforts to find deals is finally coming to fruition. we can then sell some of them and leave some equity for the next buyer and keep some of them for our own portfolio.
We are just getting started in the Pittsburgh market. We have 1 commercial space on Main Street in Butler w/ 2 levels of apartments up top that need completely redone (imagine someone walked out in 1950's and never returned).
Then we just bough a 4 unit mixed-use building in Beaver Falls (we live close, in New Brighton) w/ 3 apartments and a commercial space. We also own 13 Subway restaurants in the area (and expanding with 11 more in other states this year), so will be using the commercial space as our offices.