All Forum Posts by: Beth Liesenfeld

@Skye Penland PM sent!

It depends on what you need and your individual goals, right? Do you want to build more passive income or do you want to build that 50,000 quicker with a more active strategy? That's how we usually decide if we want to go long term rental or something like a flip. (STR is in-between depending on your returns from your area and if you have it managed, right?) If you are looking for someone else to get you a return on that 50,000 I'm sure we could find a spot here in Northern Colorado to get you a nice return! :) For our LTR we have properties in TX as they are less of an entry price. Good luck!! It's such a nice problem to have too much cash!! :D

We got ourselves into a pickle last winter-fortunately it all worked out OK in the end. We were looking to do a lease option and our Realtor connected us with a family she knew. These people had a condo to fix and flip and sell, and then were looking to get into a lease option. We agreed to finance the rehab on their place, place a lein for the rehab amount, and then purchase a house for them to lease option. Even though we had title pull the records, title missed (I actually still don't understand how this was missed) about $15,000 worth of medical leins/HOA leins on the condo the owners didn't disclose, and title didn't show them. 1) We would've been SCREWED if the owners decided not to sell the home, because then our rehab money was stuck unless they sold the property. We were also forced to accept breaking even and being lucky with getting our rehab money back out just to encourage the sale. We will never do that again. 2) Now we were stuck with these people living in a home we purchased (they had moved into the new property while we rehabbed the condo). As time went on we discovered they were less and less stable as the man of the family lost his job, then fell into drinking/depression (they had three kids under 7). We finally were able to get them to move out with the incentive of refunding some of their option consideration. The ONLY thing that saved us was they gave us $32,000 in option consideration up front which covered us. The other thing that saved us is that Colorado has a robust market. We ended up making $1500 both deals combined. But man, did we learn a lot...

@Teri F. Awesome, that’s so much for your help! It appears we are on the right track, just need to dig a little deeper. Thank you!

@Teri Feeney Styers thank you for the tip about bedrooms vs square footage. My concern is that a duplex isn't the same value as a single family home, even if they have similar bedrooms. So, as we are using hard money, we need to have good comps for the lender. Are you saying to comp it more how you would comp a commercial property? I don't know that that works for making sure our ARV is correct, especially with hard money lenders...

We have a duplex under contract to fix up and flip, but we are making it into a "legal" duplex (yes, we are verifying zoning) and officially making separation between the units. I'm an agent, but I'm having a hard time comping it for ARV due to the limitations of my CMA programs. What are you tips/tricks for finding comps? Any comp programs that you like for multiunits? Any techniques you have to share! Thanks so much for the help!

@Nicole Heasley Beitenman oh that totally makes sense!! Better to guess and be involved in the conversation, right? :) And now we have both learned something! Have a great day

@Nicole Heasley hmm I’m wondering if you know something I don’t! In the traditional definition of cash flow rentals Denver isn’t the best market right now for them. I’m not saying people don’t find them, and we have some investors cycling out, but we are largely an appreciation market at the moment. Our average home price in Denver is 433,900 (via neighborhood scout) and average rent is around 2,000 depending on neighborhood (for 3bed).

I’ve heard Birmingham, AL is really good for cash flow, as well as parts of TX, MS and Ohio (Columbus especially), KS, and TN. I am super interested in what others say, too!!

@Jocquinn Inmon yep, you need to RSVP and pay for breakfast. Search John Fisher breakfast club on Facebook (it’s part of ICOR and Invest Success which is another meetup and mentor program, respectively). Let me know if you have trouble finding it!

@Jocquinn Inmon the meeting is held at Dazzle near 16th street mall. However, there are investors from Colorado Springs all the way to up north (we are in Fort Collins). They have a Facebook page and you just pay for breakfast. It’s one of the best uses of time in our opinion as far as real estate meetings go!