All Forum Posts by: Chris Kirk

Hi @Nancy Duong! Welcome to BP. Would love to connect since you also in the industry in Sacramento :).

Let me know if I can help and hope you enjoy the forums and site.

@Rahul Bhatt, good luck with the deal! You should contact the seller and see if you are able to get any info on renter history, such as:

Are the current tenants going to be staying? 

How long have they been there?

How many tenants in the past have been evicted?

etc.

That might give you some good insight into the property and what it's future might look like as an investment property and if there are other costs associated with it (higher vacancy rate, longer time to fill tenant, eviction cost, etc) that you aren't accounting for. Once you have those answer, then your investment might be a lot more clear! Maybe it is a great investment, but always good to know!

I'd also agree with @Joe Bertolino that the area is pretty far north Sac and there aren't a ton of job opportunities. I think the growth we've been seeing in Sac has been more centralized around areas closer to the heart of the city.

Welcome @Brandon Colar! That is great you already have experience buying two homes in 2006/7 and renting one out. That's already a huge step up in the experience game. I imagine it'll make the next investment a little bit easier because there isn't quite as much of the fear factor as there is sometimes on your first investment ;).

Pretty much agree with everything @Kelli D. said, so well spoken! There's some great opportunities in the Sacramento area, but you'll need to hunt for them a bit and make sure the numbers work. 

If you haven't listened yet, I'd also check out the BP podcasts. Those are awesome and a lot of fun to hear the success stories/tricks of other people out there.

Good luck! Let me know if I can be helpful at all!

Thanks for organizing, @Al Williamson! Hope to make it out there to meet some of the BP folks in person :). Have you had events like this in the past?

@Tim Kunz, a couple of these articles are slightly older but might provide some insight with metrics regarding the rental market in Sacramento:

Sac No 2 in rental price increases: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2015/10...

Blackstone continues investing in Sac: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2015/12...

Striking Gold in Sacramento: https://blog.livechalet.com/striking-gold-in-sacra...

Welcome to BP @Fam Tsai! Totally understand your thinking for looking at a property outside of SF/San Jose. It's pretty tough right now in that area to find a cash flow positive property. Merced could be a great option, I'm not super familiar with that market so I'll let others chime in on that.

@Jo-Ann Lapin gave some great suggestions, and I'd also back her up by saying I think Elk Grove and Sacramento are great options! Sacramento especially is going through some development and I think will be a very solid long term investment.

As @Chris Mason says, a local real estate agent can be super helpful if you are investing out of your area. I'd also recommend driving through the locations you are thinking about investing in to get a feel for them. It sounds like it might be your first investment and I personally think it's helpful to have a good "feeling" of it. You mentioned crime rates, that is great info to have as well. It's probably a good idea to choose a place that isn't too far (a few hours) of a drive incase you do need to get out there. I'd recommend also trying to find a good property management company to work with that you trust since you probably won't want to be doing the drive out there too often to check on the property, show it, do maintenance, etc.

Best of luck!

Hi @Valentyn Svit I'll also follow suit of @Gordon Cuffe and recommend Chicago Title. They are a great company. Good luck with your investment! Let me know if I can help at all.

Welcome @Shakira Rule! I'd also check out the BiggerPockets podcasts and blog posts. If you haven't yet, those are pretty great! And like Tim said, meetups are also awesome :).

Hi @Chris Thomas! Welcome to BP. That sounds like you have some great goals ahead of you. Love the detailed intro. I don't have any experience with Alabama, but I'm sure there are some great opportunities there.

I'd recommend checking out some of the meetups to connect with people. There's some in the Bay Area. Pretty fun to go and just hear about other peoples experience, and there's plenty of ones that don't charge anything.

As for Sacramento, I think that is a great opportunity as well. We actually just wrote a blog post about why Sacramento is a great market (it's probably more on the fun than the analytical side). I don't think I can link here but let me know if you want to read it and I can send it over! As for the price of entry, it may be harder to find a property in your price range that can meet your criteria but there are definitely some opportunities out there. I'd just keep your eyes open, it's always fun to look around for properties. You can also try connecting with wholesalers or off market realtors.

Cheers and welcome to BP!

PS: Love that you work in games, I actually used to work at Zynga some time ago.

Welcome to BP, @Charles R Mull! Lots of great people willing to help and connect with here. Check out the forums and when you come closer to making any deals, you can share some investment numbers and get feedback. Everyone is super supportive and candid.