All Forum Posts by: Anton Ivanov

@David Hernandez

It's very hard to give some sort of blanket recommendation, especially without knowing you, but I'm a big fan of house-hacking small multi-family properties as your first investment/home purchase.

@Linda Thompson

I base my purchase on current rents and condition of the property, but I do run projections post-rehab to see what my returns/cash flow would eventually look like.

I don’t force the tenants out. We do gradual rehabs of the units as they naturally become vacant. We also sometimes offer the tenants move into one of the rehabbed units if they are ok with increased rent.

I don’t finance the rehab costs, so I don’t want to force all tenants out at the beginning and have to pay for all rehab work up-front. I’d rather use the cash flow to finance the rehabs over a longer period of time.  

@Linda Thompson

I don't like buying properties with significant problems, so they mostly need cosmetic repairs or have that "dated" look. We spend on average about $5-6k per unit on rehab and sometimes another $2k or so on the building for landscaping and miscellaneous work.

Haven't had any major problems so far, in-fact my PM/project manager and me have a standard rehab SOW and materials that we use for all rehabs and make-readies.

The properties are in pretty solid B areas, so the schools are average, along with most other statistics like crime, etc. The vacancy rate is shaping up to be around 8%, but I haven’t owned them that long and the first few years are always more unstable as we replace the tenants.

@Joseph Joseph

See link in my signature...

@Joseph Joseph @Alvin Sylvain

Actually as long as you don't mind deleting some of the older properties you've analyzed, you can analyze new ones for free forever. Visit our website for a full breakdown of features by plan.

@Jordan Autrey

You need to contact the listing agent and ask for a detailed info packet, including the current rent roll, operating statements for 2 years, cap ex schedule or past work done, pictures - if they have any, etc.

@Jordan Autrey

The accuracy of DealCheck's cash flow projections will depend on you correctly estimating the potential rent and operating expenses of the properties you’re analyzing.

Looking at what you posted, it doesn't look like you have an itemized list of expenses, as well as vacancy estimates, which will make it very hard to calculate any sort of pro forma, like the others have mentioned.

@Kwadwo Boafo

I'd be happy to take a look at the DealCheck analysis for you and point out any errors/omission or answer any questions. Feel free to email or send me a direct message!

@Albert Okagbue

Everything you said is 100% true. I believe taking control of your budget and savings is one of the first steps of building wealth, regardless if you invest in real estate or not.

@Jason Graves

Sounds like you're doing fantastic yourself, congrats!

@NA Smith

Check out this post where I wrote about that in detail:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/223/topics/565862-how-i-ran-a-direct-mail-campaign-with-20-response-rate-and-4-sales

@Lavelle Govia

Between my wife and I (who also served), we've used the VA loan only 2 times - 1st to purchase a duplex that we house-hacked and then to purchase a primary residence where we now live.

To re-use the VA loan, you generally have two options, to my understanding. First, the VA loan has a total maximum "entitlement" that you can take out, which varies by state/county. Let's say for your city it's $400k total loan amount. You can theoretically buy a property with a $200k loan, live there for a few years, then buy another for $200k using a VA loan and move there instead. Provided you have a good reason for moving, you can keep the VA loan on the first property, which is now a rental.

Alternatively, in the above scenario, you can re-finance the first property into a conventional loan if the property appreciated in value and your equity is over 20%. That will essentially pay-off your first VA loan and free up your entire $400k allotment, which you can use on another property purchase.