All Forum Posts by: Brad Bellstedt

Lets pretend for a minute that you're me. (You lucky devil you...Lol) 

You live in Las Vegas where the median home sale price is $300,000+ and your wife and her mother (who rents a room in your current home) don't want to leave your current home to continue investing. That means, you need 20%+ for your next down payment. In Las Vegas, that's going to be $40,000-$60,000. (Then there's closing costs, repairs, etc. etc.) Waiting around to bank that kind of money will take WAY too long to achieve your goal of owning 5 SFRs free and clear in the next 23 years. (Currently you owe $75,000 on a rental property and $275,000 on your primary residence) 

You have equity in property #1 but your wife and her mother who also own that house, don't want to touch the equity. (So that's not an option. Remember, the goal is to have 5 paid off properties in 23 years.)

You have about $20,000 in the bank earning next to nothing in interest that's ready to be deployed. You're aware that there are multiple ways to get a return on that money without the obstacle or inconveniences of $40,000+ down for a down payment, moving, or self managing a rental. Some of the options you are aware of include:

1. Lending that money to fellow investors as a hard money lender or within a crowd funding portfolio of an established hard money lender. 

2. Buying land and selling it with seller financing. 

3. Buying inexpensive properties (possibly condo/townhome or SFRs in a less desirable neighborhoods or in one of the smaller towns with an hour of the city) and selling it with seller financing. 

4. Getting involved with a real estate syndication company. 

5. Buying tax liens.

(If there are better options I have not listed here, please feel free to make suggestions)

So what do you do? 

(Notice "Leave your $20,000 in the bank" is not a listed option.)

You're ready to let that $20,000 start working for you but which option is best? Which is most profitable? Which requires the least amount of your time/effort? And which one can be used most effectively to move you closer to your goal of owning 5 properties free and clear in the next 23 years? (You'll be 50 by then and ready to retire) 

In an effort to give you a more full picture of the situation you find yourself in, lets add to this that you make about $60,000/year after expenses as a licensed real estate agent. What do you do now?

Now OF COURSE the next person is going to come on here and disagree with me but trust me, as someone who does 40-48 open houses a year, for 4-5 days each, for the past 5 years, I have a pretty solid understanding of the market for such a service. 

I'm not sure how much of a market there is for that in CO but in NV I've been hosting open houses roughly 45 weeks a year for the past 5 years. We're known as having one of the biggest most blowout open houses in the valley. Even with that reputation, we have found it very difficult to monetize the open house. The arrangement you're most likely to be offered is a $/hour amount to sit the open house but you have to give the leads to the listing agent. (Or the team leader who is paying you) Unless someone is going to pay you $20/hour to sit at an open house, you're probably wasting your time. We tried to get away from the open houses last year by having 2 people sit the open house for $10/hour each but that's not really a livable wage so we've found it hard to keep people in that position. (2 people are far more effective at capturing leads than 1 person)

Otherwise, as you mentioned, the leads from the open house are considered your payment. You may find a few agents that are willing to pay you for an open house but it's likely going to be less than you want and not very consistent unless you find a mega agent to borrow listings from. I wouldn't put too much effort into it. (I have already and I'll save you the time/effort.) Instead, get REALLY good at converting leads from the open house. Compensation won't matter anymore if you can pull 1+ solid leads a week from the open houses. 

Hope that helps!

It shouldn't be. A conversation needs to be had upfront with a title rep (escrow company's marketing person) to inform them of what you intend to do. Are we talking assignments? Double closings? Whatever it is, there is likely a couple of escrow companies that can handle it. I've conducted 100s of transactions, all through escrow and have never had an issue. It's not difficult, you just need to know how to work within their confinements and/or look for an escrow company with fewer confinements. 

My bad. I read that wrong and thought you were talking about Dallas. You should start a new thread and type out the full name. That way, it'll alert everyone who has a keyword search set up for that city. I think you'll get more responses. 

I'll DM you

@Greg Dickerson Thank you Greg.

RVM?

It sounds like you are very familiar with how mortgage loans work. My only concern and the only thing that wasn't mentioned here is how close to the cap for loans are you? I have no idea what the number is as I've heard in the podcasts it's changed from 10 to 5 to...who knows? A mortgage lender will know. I would go make double sure that you CAN get another mortgage loan. You said "This is my 3rd owner occupy loan (also have 2 SFH with VA loans)" Other than the possibility of hitting that cap, I don't see any downside, especially if this may be your "forever" home. 

And this is the part where I disclose that I'm no mortgage expert and suggest that you speak to a professional mortgage lender, CPA, financial advisor...etc.