All Forum Posts by: Chuck Catchings

Joe, here's my 2 cents on this subject. I work directly with a buyer that is a buy to rent guy. Location is always one of the top issues we look at but 99% of the deals that I look for come from full turn key wholesalers. Homes are usually rehabbed to a point, already have tenants in place with rental history, PM is with an established company and of course the all important NOI. Every investor or buyer is going to have their own set of guidelines that they look at or consider when looking to buy a property. I've pretty much done it all in my 30 years of construction and RE business and I explained to my buyer, why reinvent the wheel when you have everything from individuals to large companies doing this for you and everything is in place. To me it's a no brianer but you will get a lot of feedback from buyers or investors that think buying out of state is crazy. I'm not sure why your even looking outside of Texas though??? Good luck, hope this helps out somewhat. ChuckC

Amy, I've seen that website and honestly I wouldn't trust it. Looks like just another scam site to get sign up $$ and a bunch of BS after that. You need to put a proposal together and talk to real investors. Like they say, if you have a deal the money will find you. Good luck.

Chuck

Hey Steve. Good luck no matter which direction you go in.

DJ:

Welcome to BP, it's the best site of it's kind around. You say your short of funds but you have a successful career and have built 2 homes. Seems that you either have very good credit or some backing. So not sure what's holding you back here?? I lived in Austin for many years and saw that place just go nuts over the last 20 years. I got caught in the melt down in 08/09 and was doing high end fix & flips. There isn't a good ending to that story!!! Got totally out of the construction & RE biz but with the way the market is right now if you have any knowledge of how this all works and you have the tools man you better jump on it while it last. I could never get into San Antonio for some reason, maybe because I get lost every time I go there. But from what I hear it's a sleeper market that no one knows about and is pretty hot. You have access to a great acquisition & RE firm there that moves about 20 to 30 homes a month at 30% to 50% below market value. Can't get much easier than that to find a property and then have the same company sell it for you. I'm working with an international investor and I have presented several options for him to consider but the Texas market is one of them. So I would like to maybe hook up some time and maybe keep in touch as I would like to know what's really going on their in SA. Shoot me a response if your interested and good luck, thanks.

Chuck

Dennis: The problem with real estate investing is your going to get 100 different opinions on how to do this from 100 different people. You can read yourself silly and spend a ton of $$ on seminars and so called guru 100% proven, guaranteed to make you rich courses. I wish PB had been around when I started way back when, this site is priceless to someone like you. There are a lot of great people on here with a ton of experience that will help you out for 0 cost. But let me make a couple of suggestions as I have been there and done that and have made just about every mistake you can make kind of guys.

1. ASAP, find a good local real estate meet up group, should be a bunch just in SD alone.

2. Contrary to what you may think you can make a great return on your money without even buying a single piece of property.

3. Find successful wholesalers or other investors looking for additional operating capital and work with these guys. Just make sure that your backed and secured on your investment.

4. Think outside the BOX, be creative. The ONE thing that everyone in this business needs is $$$. Just be very careful who you hook up with.

5. Another option in my opinion is working with an established full turn key wholesale operation. These most likely will be out of your local area and you will get a ton of pro & con opinions from different people here on PB about this as well.

Hope this helps you out somewhat, good luck and enjoy the journey.

Chuck

Corey, J. Scott is right on the money and so is Bryan to a point(fixture do cost more). As with any rehab or fix & flip, if you buy it at the right price then you have room to be more flexible. The main thing to consider with high end flips is you better know what your budget is or what you rehab cost are going to be before you buy. You still need to buy in that 50 cents on the dollar margin if at all possible. With high end flips you have more margin for error. For instance: I bought a property in Austin back in the beginning of 2008 for $300K. At this time the market was hot and I paid basically the cost of the lot. Gutted the home and spent almost $200K on the project, about $100K more than we originally budgeted. But we had a huge profit margin in this property so the extra $100K didn't hurt to much. The house was going to go on the market for $720K when the market crashed and the bottom fell out.

So the moral to this story is no matter how much profit you have in the deal, if your in a bad location or can't sell then what's the point. You have to be extra careful when doing high end properties or you can loose your shirt, arm & leg in heart beat. It's great when it works but really sucks when it doesn't. Good luck !!!

ChuckC

John: Please send me an email to [email protected]. I am in negotiations with 2 large investors and am putting together a portfolio of potential investments. So let's hook up if possible, thanks.

Chuck Catchings

Cameron:

You don't need an attorney to draw up a fee agreement, you can get them for free off the internet. Just be sure to check the local RE laws about finders fees or bird dog fees. If there are issues with this most real, honest investors or buyers will work with you as long as you find them good deals. Good luck.

Terry unless you know the area it's very tough to do. I lived in Austin for 17 years and know that market well but I live in Colorado now and am working the Austin market but only because I have and have made new contacts to work that market. It takes a lot of time and effort but if you do find a off market deal then the payoff is well better than average. But you have to have deep pockets to work hot markets, irreguadless of what anyone tells you. If you have the funding you can work any market. But you better have your ducks lined up and ready to move quick. Listing prices are were the buyers start in these markets. Good properties in good neighborhoods ARE going to get multiple offers. Be prepared to get out bid. Just FYI I had a local buyer in Austin qualified for up to $400K, he's already out of the market in the neighborhood he's looking to buy. He put in an offer $33k over asking price on a property there in Austin and was out bid 18 times in 24 hours, NO joke !!! Just try to make a low ball offer in these areas and they will laugh at you. Forget everything you know about the 70% & 50% rule because they do not apply. Sure you may find one in a 100 deals if that. You have to approach it from a different perspective. Forget REOs and short sales, they will have multiple bids usually up to market price. You have to have bird dogs or RE agents for pre MLS listings or pre foreclousers. Look for the emerging markets turning the corner into hot markets. But if you don't have people on the ground I don't think it is even possible, in fact I know it isn't. Hope this helps.

Steven & Alex here's my 2 cents on this because I do this. I know and work with Kyle(posted above) and a couple of others that offer full turn key wholesale properties for buy to rent buyers. Now in general these are all set up for cash buyers only, some exceptions but not many though. Most of these types of wholesalers have good properties in good neighborhoods with either PM in place or access to PM companies. So all you have to do is bring in the buyers looking for usually higher ROIs. Most of the areas that these companies work you would not consider high end markets or hot markets like Austin, Vegas or Phoenix but predominately rental markets like St. Louis, Mo, Pittsburgh,Pa. several cities in Ohio to mention a few. All good rental markets.
In Austin I have a JV with a guy who will fund any fix & flip if you can find one that is. In most cases you can get properties below market value and assign to a buyer if applicable in that state and make more profit. There are lot's of people looking into out of state investing due to their local market but want to be secure that they have all the right people in the right place to get these deals done. Once you find these companies that do a full service turn key operations and feel comfortable then all you have to do is market your deals to potential buyers. To me it's a win-win situation for everyone. I have no issue passing along any info., that's networking and it helps me out as well. Just like any other RE investment it can and is done every day. Good luck.