All Forum Posts by: Chip Carter

Hello, I was hoping you could help me clear up some confusion about estimating repair costs throughout the deal funnel. I understand that to BRRRR you need a distressed property and often this will be property that needs significant work. It seems like you are getting your initial pool of potential deals from wholesalers and auctions, or maybe a great agent if you can find the right one.

What I don't understand is how you can make any kind of repair estimate based on a couple of bad photos from a wholesaler or an auction website.  I also don't understand at what point in the timeline you involve an inspector and GC bids.   Can someone walk me through a hypothetical scenario of whittling down the deal leads to one you will actually close on?   

For example, I am staring at a handful of wholesale properties. Of course each wholesaler says that something like 'if you put $40k into the property then you can increase the ARV by $80k'. So there you are looking at these leads, but no way can you assume the wholesaler has accurate repair estimates. What do you actually do next?

No worries Benjamin!   And welcome from someone else brand new.   I believe the meeting organizer is @Brian Hayes (not sure how to make the name link).   I want to say it is the last Friday and first Saturday of the month.   Details should be on Brian's page or recent posts...

Thanks for all the well wishes guys--this is truly an impressive community.  So yeah,  I just started reading "How I turned $1000 into $1 Million" by William Nickerson- that is a good book!    I'm only a little ways in, but one incredibly thought-provoking point was just the idea that banks borrow your money...then turn around and invest it in real estate (i.e. mortgage loans).  I mean, everybody knows that right?  But then when you stop and think about it, you're kind of like "Wait a minute...I really am kind of losing out by storing up a savings account."  Especially when you factor in inflation.

Then thinking about LEVERAGE was another really interesting point.  Would I rather earn 5% interest on $20k (that's basically what you do in the stock market)...or leverage my $20k (i.e. use it as a loan downpayment) into a $100k investment deal and earn 5% interest on that $100k (less the costs of setting up the deal)?  Man, I feel like I should have learned this stuff in 8th grade.  Or maybe I did, but I was too busy staring at the girls to let it sink in...

So yeah, I think I am going to go back through the UBG because I got a lot out of that first time through. I have been thinking about 'house hack' FHA duplex, but after looking around I noticed a lot of the duplexes already seem to be renter occupied. So part of me is just like "eh, pure investment duplex with a 30 year mortgage might be the way to go." From my early (EARLY--I am a NEWB) studies in the real estate game it seems that the main thing is you need to get that first rental property going (whatever it takes for your life situation) so you can later convince lenders of various types to finance other small multifamilies. Then with some experience in small multifamily units (or several single family homes), one could ideally convince investors/lenders to finance a commercial deal on a small apartment building. Then by that point if you are say 50 units or so deep...hopefully you are close to being out of the rat race and Robert Kiyosaki drops in via helicopter to congratulate you with fireworks, a bottle of champagne, 3 supermodels, and a goat.

Thanks guys!  David, I will probably have to catch you at the end of April (holiday weekend and all).  It is really cool to see such a warm community welcome as someone who is brand new.  Anyhow, I'm off to poke around the forums and hopefully increase my brain power a bit...hope to see you all around.

Hello All,

    My name is Chip and I am looking to find an investment property in Westerville or Dublin.  I am a working class guy--currently working in medical sales.  I live in my hometown north of Youngstown, but I travel all over Ohio on a weekly basis.   

    My only RE experience so far was unfortunately a bad one.  Long story short I speculated on a house in Phoenix that ended up underwater and I had to short sell.  That has led me to the more interesting concept of cash flow investing.  

    Based on my previous experiences, I thought the idea of cash flow investing would be a very frustrating one.  If I had wanted to rent my house in Phoenix with property management, it would have been a monthly loss (hence the short sale).  I am really intrigued by the mathematics BP-type investors are using to calculate cashflow.  If working in corporate America these past years has taught me one thing it is that a 'job' is anything but stable.  

I have been reading some of the recent articles about using an FHA loan and that seems like it might be a good way for me to get in the game (but smart this time). I like the idea of a 'house hack' duplex/triplex/quadplex...stay there for a year, then acquire a new property. I am most interested in the Dublin and Westerville areas because they seem to be developing, but I am hoping to begin building a network and hearing the opinions of others. On the downside though, I am not sure those areas are really duplex/triplex friendly...I haven't really seen any listed and I'm not sure you will get the tenants for them up there.

    Hopefully I will be able to get to the Columbus meetup at the end of April (@brianhayes I think it was?).  I am definitely interested in hearing from others about cashflow investing and the north columbus markets.  So far I have just been looking on realtor.com etc. and I haven't seen anything that really matches up with the math for cash flow investing.  I am hoping to hear others experiences about actually acquiring cash flow properties. 

    Anyhow, thanks for reading and hopefully I get to meet some of you soon!