All Forum Posts by: Clark Kirkpatrick

Find a different house. The rehab will cost a lot more than $25k. 

I get it that you found a house and it seemed good, and that means you've become emotionally invested in it.

Go find an easier one. The rehab for the easier one will cost more than you expected too - but 50% over budget for a 10k rehab is manageable. For this, you'll really be hurting.

Once you've done an easier one, you'll know what you're looking at a lot better for bigger rehabs.

If you buy it for $520k, you'll be losing money every month. Like a lot of money.

For those rents, I'd pay somewhere between the 1% and 2% rule, which for this house means I'd pay between $145k and $290k.

This is a really, seriously, resoundingly bad deal.

Go to a cheaper market, especially if you want cashflow. I can find 2% deals all day in my market (which is a 2 hour drive from Bergen County) and I'm sure you can find something closer to you that'll cashflow. 

I don't know NJ markets really, but feel free to send me a message if you'd consider a PA market. I'd be happy to talk with you.

You can see part of the MLS on places like realtor.com, zillow, trulia, etc.

But the only people who have access to the whole MLS are real estate agents and brokers. That's one of the reasons why developing a relationship with a good agent can be so valuable to you.

Read all the books that BiggerPockets has published. Then you'll know a good amount.

Find a realtor to help you. They're the best place to source deals when you only need a few of them. Ideally find someone who's an investor themselves, and who does a lot of volume of business in your area.

@Brian Van Pelt Good thought. He doesn't live too far away, so maybe I'll drive by and try to avoid being tied up in the basement.

If I don't post an update, you'll know what happened.

Strange situation: I bought a duplex with a garage, and the garage tenant has been there for 15 years +. He hasn't been to or opened the garage in at least a decade, and he still sends a money order to the previous owner each month like clockwork.

We need to get him to start sending the check to my PM company, and the only contact info we have for him is his return address on the envelope he sends his payments in. We've sent him letters but he won't change where he sends the payment.

Any tricks to tracking him down in some way so that we can get in contact with him and get the checks coming to the correct address?

House hack!!

Buy a small multifamily property, which means that it's 2, 3 or 4 units. More is better, but go with whichever one you can make work.

Nothing that requires too much rehab, because your budget will end up being way more than you expected, and you can do that on some future project.

This will eliminate your living expenses because your tenants will be paying your mortgage, and it'll teach you how the real estate business works: finding and analyzing deals, screening and managing tenants, the business aspects of it like taxes and accounting, how to do small repairs, and lots of other stuff.

The reasons you should move in (instead of having it as an investment property you don't live in) is because you can keep an eye on things, any problems that arise are not too far away, and especially: you can put a tiny down payment on the house if it's owner occupied. That'll make your money go way farther. Put down as little as you can, and save the rest of your money for cash reserves. You will need them more than you expect.

Then since you're living for free, you can save up for your next deal - and you'll have way more credibility than the people who have no deals.

Best time to buy is during the off season! Bite when the competition is low, don't wait to be outbid by other people during the next hot season.

You appear to be proposing a strategy of buying high and selling low. That is a bad idea.

Buy something that cashflows nicely, and what the market is doing won't bother you. And ideally, buy it when the competition is scarce.

In my municipality, I can put the gas and electric entirely in the tenant's name/account, so I'm not liable for that at all. For water and sewer, I can't do that, and I can't even put the tenant on the account - it's just billed to me directly, regardless who lives there.