All Forum Posts by: Andy Eakes

@Marcus Wright I'll have to check out deal machine! 

I think the best technique for driving for dollars is to pick a zip code and go street by street. Say you go from this street to that street, map it out before you leave, and you can keep track of the streets you've seen on your phone. The key is to see as many properties as possible without seeing the same ones multiple times. You'll find the most success keeping it organized and simple. 

The driving for dollars strategy is going to take time, maybe even months, so simplifying it and playing the long game will put you in front of the most potential leads possible!

Good luck!

@Matthew W. Sounds like you've done your homework! 

All of those places sound like great spots for STR. I can only speak for So Cal though. I know people bash it for being so expensive and all, but its like that for a reason. So Cal is so popular and has tremendous value. Even through COVID, our tourism remains super high! You can get top dollar with Air BNB and you dont have many of the other risks involved. Oregon has seem so much bad press lately, I'd be curious to see what their tourism is like right now. Another thing you need to consider is weather. All of the places you mentioned besides So Cal have periods of bad weather. And you have the threat of hurricanes in the South East. Many people will say there are earthquake threats in CA, but in my 26 years of living here, I have experienced 2 very mild earthquakes.

So I would always go So Cal no matter what. You also get amazing appreciation too. I bought my home in February and had it appraised recently. The value has already gone up $100,000. And I don't even live near the beach. 

Good Luck!

Anyone is San Diego know a good foundation specialist who's reasonably priced??

Thanks in advance!

@Blake Wood You should look into opportunity zones in SD. 

There are some requirements that need to happen in order for it to work, but they revolve around adding so much increased value to a property through an extensive rehab. It works great for fix and flip investors!

And to my understanding, how it works is if you increase the property value by so much through a rehab, you not only get a capital gains deferral on the sale of the property, but you also can defer some of the gains on stock that was sold that year as well. I will say I am not a CPA and I would confirm all of the info I just put out there with a professional CPA if I were you, but it is a great deal and the reason so many people want to fix and flip in areas like North Park, Golden Hill, Sherman Heights, Barrio Logan and more! 

I hope that helps!

@Drew Beard Everything seems to be pretty well covered here. But I will add that if your girlfriend is an agent, make sure that she checks with her broker to see if wholesaling is something she can even do. I know here in CA there are a number of brokers who do not allow their agents to be wholesalers and find the process to be immoral. I am not here to pass judgement (I honestly see both good and bad in wholesaling), but I figured it might be useful to put out there so neither of you (especially your girlfriend) get in trouble without even knowing! 

But from what I can tell on here, wholesaling is a great way to build smaller amounts of money for your own investment down the road. Any positive gain in real estate for a newbie investor such as yourself sounds like a win to me! So if you are making any money right now, I would consider it successful for you. Besides, while you may be making money on the deal, your experience in obtaining leads and making deals happen is far more valuable than the dollars you'll make on the deal and can help you for the rest of your investing career. Maybe consider this a simple stop on the road to financial freedom!

Good luck to you. 

@Cathy S. Hey Cathy! Hope you're doing well. Glad to hear you're about to pull the trigger on a property! 

I think a pool is a total upside. Some people may say it is a liability, but I'd say that unless there are kids, you're going to be okay. And I think even though the beach is as popular as it is, you said that the beach is 15-20 minutes away meaning that its probably something in the eastern part of San Diego? Meaning that the temperatures are going to be brutal, especially late summer early fall, and a pool makes a lot of sense and makes it an even more attractive property for renters. 

@Tommy Cahill Hey Tommy sounds like a great plan at such a young age. FHA loans may be your best and only bet without any credit. Have you been working regularly the last few years? Typically with an FHA, you have to have been employed for the past two years (although I have seen some exceptions). Also, with an FHA, the property must a single family or 2-4 mutli family unit and it must be owner-occupied for at least a year. Anything bigger than a 4 unit is considered commercial and not covered under the FHA insured loan. So it sounds like that would work well with your plan of living in one and renting the other.

If the plan is to get 2 mutli families, you'll have to do them separately do to the owner occupancy clause. But with 3.5% down, that isn't too bad, but I do not know your local market. Then, at that point, you two could form an LLC and transfer the properties into that which is the best move in my opinion because it protects you should you ever be sued.

Hopefully that helps! Good luck with everything!

@Sachin Maskey Sachin thanks for the post and that seems to be a hot debate for a lot of investors. Really, it is going to boil down to what you want to do, where you are located, and how much do you have to invest with. 

It's hard for people to give you an accurate answer on here because each local market is special and unique in its own way. Multifamily rentals may be the way to go in one area, but in another its not. So you're going to have to do some market research in the area of your choice to determine which investing method works best for your area. If you are dead set on rentals, but your local market doesn't support that, you may have to look out of your local market. You can definitely find a good agent through the Bigger Pockets networking tab. Reach out to them and pick their brain a little. They'll be able to help you understand what you're looking for.

I will note finally that with single family homes you obviously have one roof and foundation per unit. Those are some of the more costly repairs to make when investing in real estate. So you have one door (one rent) per one foundation and roof. Multi families are a little different in that you can have more doors per roof and foundation you're going to have to maintain. So you can have a quadplex which gives you four doors (four separate rents) per one roof and foundation. There are obviously more factors than that but its a good start and thing to think about when it comes to cash flowing every month.

I hope that helps!

@Matthew Johnson Hey Matthew. I definitely recommend using an accountant in CA.  They will understand where YOU are coming in relation to your property rather than just your property in relation to you.

@Account Closed Congrats on deciding to whole sale! How exciting? Have you found any off market properties? If so, what was your method of obtaining those leads?

I would say Craigslist is where I find a lot of cash deals in San Diego. Also, I know that there are more and more REI groups meeting up in SD. I would also attend those to meet cash buyers.