All Forum Posts by: Corey Hawkinson

@Vinh Nguyen if you’re going to lowball, make sure you still have a strategy. If you lowball on the first day a property is listed you’re unlikely to get accepted. However, if the property has been sitting for 60-90 days you might have better luck.

Also, be honest with your agent about your plan. If they don’t want to be part of your plan respect that and find a buyer’s agent that is willing to work with you. Some agents won’t want to submit low offers for various reasons. After all, their name is also on that offer and it can be a small world within the agent community, especially for multi family properties.

Lastly, think about how low you’re talking about because “lowball” means different things to different people. Don’t waste your time with offers of $10 plus a coupon to Denny’s on a million dollar listing.

@Loubert Jean Philippe That sounds like a great deal. Saving $1,800 every month is exactly why you house hack! Then repeat the process a few times while you keep the previous property. You’ll start to build serious wealth.

@John Morgan “these base hits are starting to produce runs.” That sounds like my journey too. I started with a very simple property, a condo for $49k. Then a second condo. Then a single family.

Amazing how with time those 3 properties have turned into a 4-unit, a 6-unit and under contract for a 5-unit. Getting started was one of the best decisions I ever made. I did very little research when I started but I knew the condo was a good cash flowing purchase. Of course, that was 2012. In hindsight, anything worked in 2012 although there were still just as many people saying real estate was a terrible investment.

@Gerardo Azpeitia I agree with Terrell. It isn’t the “cash” itself that’s appealing to a seller, it’s the fact that the cash buyer can close without contingencies. You might not like it but removing contingencies will likely help you out.

Anyone who has ever sold a house to an annoying buyer realizes the risk of contingencies. Look around these forums and you’ll find plenty of annoying buyers proving me correct.

@Justin Woodford Tough love from James but he’s 100% correct. I would not jump into multi family with only $7,000. That’s not a smart plan.

In my opinion you should focus on saving more money and gaining more knowledge at this point. Or set your aim more on house hacking. You still want plenty of reserves though.

@Jimmy Hung The city could stop you from operating it as a duplex. They could deny your rental license. How likely is that is a separate question. My belief is that they would typically let you operate it as long as you’re paying taxes and your tenants are not causing an issue. But I wouldn’t guarantee that.

Small suggestion, have your PM give the neighbors a letter with the PM’s contact information. That way, if your tenants do cause an issue ideally the neighbors call the PM instead of the city.

@Jimmy Hung sounds like a good deal. I understand that the city won’t rezone it, but I think you should verify that you can continue to operate it as a duplex. As long as they allow you to continue operations you should be fine.

@Ralph Ace Typically that would be you as the “ugly” side is supposed to face the owner. Since the image has the posts on this side of the fence, the owner should be the person on this side.

@Jeremy Bartlett Another option to try is a simple heat lamp. Sounds stupid, but we have a section that will freeze when temps get below 0. We put a heat lamp on the pipe where it comes back into the house. That heat transfers enough up to the frozen section to thaw it. That’s been better than opening up a wall in our case.

@John Daniel Sounds like you have a great plan. And yes, as someone with 11 units currently (mildly successful) I can confirm that I did not know what I was doing when I got started. I’m still learning.