All Forum Posts by: Brett Merrill

@Danny Randazzo thank you for the response. I definitely agree. As of right now I am managing my current properties to thoroughly learn all sides of the business. However, I have a great team in place as I start to scale my business including an excellent property manager that has already evaluated my current properties and will be working alongside me as I begin looking at larger properties. Once my next property has been acquired, regardless of its size, I will be transitioning the management of all properties to my property manager. My schedule is very flexible and I do plan on continuing to at least work part time until I hit my set number. However, I will be allotting more time for asset management once the next property has been acquired.

@Tj Hines and @Matt Engle thank you for the great information. I 100% agree with your position on this. I would contribute most of the success of my previous properties from me being very strict with my numbers, doing all the proper due diligence and finding value that can be added. Therefore, I will not use the 10 minute offer as a way of actually submitting a greater number of letters of intent it will be mostly for doing a quick screen to determine if the property deserves further analysis. I do see how it would allow you to make more offers but just like you are saying there is a lot more that goes into it and therefore my offers would most likely always change which might poorly reflect on my credibility. This has been very helpful as to how I will proceed.

@Greg Dickerson Thank you. I appreciate the experienced advice.

@Greg Dickerson thank you very much for your response. Yes, what I have been getting out of it is using that strategy to then formulate a letter of intent which will be used as the basis of our offer moving forward. In order to gain more experience and confidence I would like to analyze at least three properties a night. Looking in the 10 to 30 unit range what would be your advice on how in depth to get with these analyses? I believe the theory behind the 10 minute offer is using a conservative quick conservative gross income (10% vacancy) and expenses (55% of gross income) along with cap rate to arrive at a fair market offer. This usually is much further below the asking price when based off of the marketing package figures. Have you had experience submitting Letters of intent based off of a quick analysis such as this?

Hey BP community,

I was hoping to get a little input on other investors experience with the 10-minute offer as found in one of my favorite books Financial Freedom with Real Estate Investing The Blueprint to Quitting Your Job With Real-Estate-Even without Experience or Cash by @Michael Blank. 

A quick back-story - I am a Physical Therapist by trade and also an investor in the Western Massachusetts area. My investments so far have been buy and hold acquisition of two 4-family properties one of which is mixed-use. It took about 1.5 years to acquire both which is a little slower than I anticipated. However, they are both excellent properties and I am very pleased with the financials and operations of both. 

I am now looking to successfully scale my real estate business. I have revamped my team and have switched my focus and goals on acquiring a 10-30 unit value add property in the Western-Central Massachusetts area in the next six months (breaking it down using the 90 Days of Intention Journal by  @Brandon Turner). Now that I am ready to begin making offers I am curious to hear others experiences with the 10-minute offer. I agree with this strategy and have compared the offer price using the 10-minute offer with that of a more complex analyzation and usually get close to the same number. 

I will be moving forward with this strategy and would love to hear peoples questions, concerns or advice on this type of strategy and scaling. Thank you in advance and look forward to hearing form you. 

Hello BP,

I am an investor in the Western Massachusetts area. I have been investing primarily in 4-family and mixed use properties. I am looking to scale and have a goal to acquire a 10-30 unit property in the next 6 months. I have an excellent team in place and am looking to speak with a recommended CRE lender in the MA area. Thank you in advance for your help.

Good afternoon @Rob Lloyd,

I am an investor and agent from the Amherst MA area. I would love to here more about this. Please feel free to direct message me about the details. I look forward to speaking with you. 

Hello @Alan Brown,

I am an investor in Amherst area about 45 min east of Pittsfield. I am starting to look at opportunities out in that direction and would love to hear more about your experiences with the area. I will be making my way in and out of the area in the month to come. Let me know if you would like to meet up and grab a cup of coffee. 

Hello @Matthew Dobson,

Great to hear from you. I'm a investor/agent in the Western Massachusetts area but have my focus on specific parts of Worcester as well and am hoping to gain a lot more knowledge of the area. I plan on attending monthly meet ups in that area starting this month. Look forward to hopefully meeting up. 

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $408,000
Cash invested: $40,000

A 4-Family purchased with seller financing. House hacking was used to live for free while completeing the necessary repairs.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

My current focus is the buy and hold acquisition model for multifamily properties.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Family friend that let me know of a property owner that was sick of all the headaches of managing his property.

How did you finance this deal?

Seller financing of the seller holding a second for 15% of the down payment and I provided 5% down cash. The loan has a 10 year balloon and an interest rate of 4.5%.

How did you add value to the deal?

By doing minor/moderate repairs to each unit resulting in the ability to raise the total rent/month from $4800/month to $6100/month. The repairs also resulted in a increase in appraised value to allow for a refinance to pay the balloon.

What was the outcome?

These repairs allowed me to increase the rents to $1300, $1500, $1500, $1800 for a total of $6100/month. The property has already significantly increased in appraised value and should be able to be refinanced to pay the balloon in no more than two years. The property cash flows $1600/month and provides a 35% ROI.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I learned a lot about structuring a deal with seller financing and will certainly be using it in the future.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I am an agent myself so I structured the deal around that with attorneys.