All Forum Posts by: Corey Chonsky

@Tony Wallis, I agree with @Kenneth Garrett. Don’t short change the process. You need to learn your investment area and figure out what works. A lot of what people mentioned are thumb rules and will not work in all instances. Analyze a bunch of properties in the area you want to invest in and you will be able to answer your question for your area. 

@Kristopher Kyzar, I use Dan Grubb at ABNB. 

Noelle Yarn Sorry, I didn't reply to your message sooner but I was on deployment during that time and I haven't really gotten fully back on to BiggerPockets since returning. That property actually turned out pretty well. The total cost with purchase, closing cost, and rehab came in around $74000 and I was able to rent it out for $1025 a month. So not quite the return I initially envisioned but a pretty good return.

I agree that it would probably take more than just one podcast to really cover what a beginning military investor should consider prior to jumping in to real estate. One of the biggest things for me is being in the military and having a family, you basically have two number one priorities in your life and at no time should real estate ever be a priority over them. This obviously can make it difficult to then find the drive, energy, and time for something that needs to be a top priority such as real estate. Also, at least for myself, I don't really have time during lunch or breaks to deal with real estate business since I'm not really ever guaranteed a long lunch or any break on any given day. This means that I'm pretty much left with after business hours or the weekend which is usually family time. So I have to conduct a lot of business via email or voicemail tag which isn't the most efficient method of conducting business and causes things to take forever. This is why if military members are truly serious about investing they need to really focus on building their knowledge of the area, how to analysis a property, and maybe try finding experts in the area that would be willing to help you. Newbie military investors (which I still consider myself to be one) really need to understand what may go wrong in real estate because they are in the military such as PCSing (especially shortly after arriving to a new area) and having strategies to deal with it, deployment/surge deployments (also something that us Navy folk call an Individual augmentee or IA), landlording at a distance or landlording in general, and overseeing rehabbing without being able to visit the job site on a regular basis. I personally feel that I would be impossible if you don't have a property manager or someone that you can trust to help you out. 

@Account Closed, I like the BRRRR strategy because if you do it right it can be like investing with no money down or low money down. I've recently closed on a few deals and about to close on a few other using cash and after I refinance I hope to get almost or all of my money back out. I hope things workout for you. Investing while in the military presents some unique challenges.

I would also be interested in a military forum. 

@Adam Lumsden, I would recommend that you start out by educating yourself about the different ways to invest in real estate first just to get an idea of what path would fit you best. BP has a lot of great material for beginners to include free books and podcasts not to mention all of the content on the forums. Good luck.

@James Fox, welcome to BP. There are several active duty members on here so it is definitely possible to invest and be active duty at the same time. There are probably a few ways for you to invest while you are overseas, but I would probably think twice about it at this point. Especially, since you are trying to start the process while overseas. I know it can be hard to wait once you set your mind on getting started in real estate. It is important to take action but at the same time it is important to make sure that you buy the right property which can be hard when there are some many different unknowns for you right now. Anyway, good luck on your future career in real estate and hope to see you around the forums.

@John Thomasson, congrats on regaining your focus. A lot of people are not able to do that. Your story is very interesting especially to me since I'm originally from North Dakota and I now live in Virginia but I don't have a desire to head back to North Dakota. Definitely, do not miss the winters. Good luck on your future Real Estate career and you came to a great place for education. Make sure you set aside time to checkout the podcasts. They are pretty great. 

I regularly search a lot of the different auction sites, and I feel that many of them at least in this area tend to be overpriced. Even the one that I was just the highest bidder on was a little more than what I wanted to pay by about $5000 but if it turns out to be a minimal cost rehab cost then it will be a great deal. If it is a moderate rehab, it will be a on par with the rental property that I got off of the MLS. If it turns into a complete gut job, then it will turn into an expensive lesson.

@Wayne Brooks, the property appears to be vacant from the several drive byes that I have done but when I called customer service they said that since it was originally listed as occupied that I will not be able gain access to the property until I close. Although, I'm going to go see if I can do a better evaluation of the property beforehand to provide my contractor a better guesstimate of the project scope.