All Forum Posts by: Andy Jenkins

@Adrienne Donner

Did it test positive, high, or very high? Positive tests are REALLY common and typically just involve a cleaning of the air ducts and furnace. If you’re ripping out most of the material on your flip (eg back to the studs), and replacing the furnace, that’ll go a long way to help. If you’re just doing a few cosmetic changes, I’d get it all cleaned up first, then paint the cabinets etc.

Talk to your local meth clean up companies. They know about this stuff! It’s always better to over clean and disclose!!!

@Gavin Dowdy

If you keep the townhouse as a rental, do you have friends/ family that can manage it for you? It seems like you don’t have any wriggle room for a property manager.

HOA fees always seem to shift cash flow to loss. Will your promotion give you a pay bump big enough to cover this cost? If you can ride it out for a couple of years, rents will probably continue to rise, but your mortgage should stay the same, so you'll eventually cash flow.

I see appreciation as the main value driver in the SL Valley. There’ll always be more humans looking for housing, but we’re running out of affordable lots/land.

If you can afford to hold onto the house, hold on. If you can't, you can't. Ask your Realtor/Title what the likely loss would be on a sale. How many months of HOA fees is that?

If you re-finance, remember that you’d then be doing it as an investment property, not a primary residence. Most conventional lenders need higher rates etc for investment properties.

@Chris Clothier

Love this post! Stay human folks.

I agree with Alan and Trent, I've not been able to find an obvious BRRRR deal for a long time, and certainly not off the MLS. There is still a lot of opportunity, but there's no easy button. Cash flow is difficult in SLC rentals at current purchase prices, and even pretty crappy homes sell for a lot of money compared to a couple of years ago.

Live in options seem to make the most sense. I did a live in remodel with my last house and saw a $40k gain on sale for $8-10k in. Now I live in a duplex in a nice part of town that wouldn't have made sense as a rental ($550k for $100/m cash flow), but is a great house hack.

Hi Brittany,

Do you currently live in the Salt Lake Valley? The SLREIA and Utah REIA meetings have a lot of collective experience. Check out a historic thread here on BP, I think it's literally called "Wholesaling in Utah".

@Jeff Rappaport (I met him at a UREAI event in Sandy) and Jeffrey S Breglio are very knowledgable, and here on BP.

Check out SLREIA and UREIA. They have regular meet ups.

@Kevin OBrien

Why invest in SLC? Your profile says you’re from UT, so you know about the big family sizes! The Salt Lake Valley is trapped between the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges. They’re not building any new land, the lots are being snapped up, or are too expensive to make good returns. In a decade or so there’ll be nowhere left to build, but the people will keep on breeding.

Economy? Booming and diverse: tech, mining, oil refineries, ski industry, universities, hospitals, and low taxes. There’ll be renters for everyone! And smog, awful schools and theocracy.

@Amelia McGee

What type of project are you taking on? If you're doing a flip, or BRRRR, you'll be really inefficient compared to an experienced tradesperson, and any money you save you'll lose on holding costs.

A live in flip is a great opportunity to try out skills. I bought my first house from a pretty poor “we buy any meth house” flipping crew and ripped out most of their cheap finishes. For the first three weeks I worked flat out. I used YouTube, asked friends in the trades, and used my brain to figure things out. It was a great, frustrating, cheap, exhausting, time sink of a project. Once the family moved in most work ground to a halt and we just “lived with it”. 6 weeks before I sold, the intensity picked right back up. I’m glad I did it to my own house as I’ve now got skills and experience, and made $40k in sweat equity from about $10k in materials and tools... but it took AGES!

What's your intended use for the property? Buy and hold?

That's a sweet map, Art Perkitny!