All Forum Posts by: Andy Collins

do what Bryan H. said, if you need to pay cash for something used delayed financing.

I'm not sure if you can get a true HELOC on a rental property,,,they are more designed for your residence,,

andy

if your making offers on MLS listings your going to have to go through an agent,, the listing agent won't want to deal with you directly

If you walked away from every house with foundation issues in certain areas around Dallas,,you would never do anything,,,foundations really aren't scary,,now many I walk away from, but many are easily repaired.

You need to look at houses in the area you want to work, and don't make it too big,,start with a zip code, learn everything you can about houses that have recently sold, check out every house on the market, find out what they later sold for.

Know about the schools, does on street go to one high school, but one over goes to a different one, which one is more desirable (big deal in the area I buy).

You don't get to know a market overnight,,it takes time, but until you start you won't ever know the market.

Look at houses,,,lots and lot of houses,,talk to realtors, talk to investors,,you don't have to get an appointment to see the inside of all of them,,just check them out as best you can (an agent won't really appreciate taking you to 30 houses every weekend,,,

when your contractor calls you from a rehab and needs two new toilets, and you know you can put 2 in the back of your corvette (or other car not really designed to carry such

Jamie ask the important question,, start with what are want to accomplish with the website,,then figure out how to accomplish that.

I actually buy my rentals in neighborhoods that they are 'frowned upon', I want rentals in areas that 90% of the properties around them are OO. I don't have a problem with vacancies probable because of this.

Bill made some great points on which one is dependent on the house. If I ran across a $200k house that was a steal, I would never consider that for rental, but I would for a flip, same with a house with a pool, I have one house with a pool and have great tenants that take care of it, if they ever move I will probable sell it

It also has a great deal to do with time, if you are working full time and investing in RE, flips take a lot of time, rentals not so much.

flipping can be a well paying job, but its a job, if you stop flipping, your revenue stops.

I am a buy and hold investor, but am considering adding doing some flips,,,it seems some combination of the two would actually be the perfect plan. If someone doesn't have a 'real' job and doesn't have enough rental property to handle that full time, then do a few flips to supplement your income and take up some extra time

andy

in an emergency you can use the propane heaters, they don't require utilities and put out a pretty good amount of heat.

I had to do this on a short sale that was vacant,,the owner signed a "lease" for me to legally have access, I keep the house warm enough for pipes not to freeze during some unusually cold weather a few years ago,,the utilitie companies took too long turning them on because of the problems caused by the weather (I had gas, but no electricity to run the system)

this is why you sometimes have a higher rehab budget that might be totally necessary,,,over estimate your rehab cost and more is put into escrow (which you get when rehab is finished), then your refinancing the full 75%