All Forum Posts by: Corey Hawkinson

@Adrian Rae Sounds like you’re already doing a lot of good things to reach your goals. Saving 25% is great! Seems like your expensive city is the main issue. I’m not sure if changing that is an option. Or, would that be offset too much from a pay decrease?

Obviously there are little things you can do to cut expenses, but as you mentioned, you don’t want to cut expenses so far that you hate life.

@Andrew Brown I’m not an agent. But I would never make an unethical decision. I’m sure every other member of this site, where comments can easily be found through a simple google search, would agree with me.

@Simon Hernandez My purchase was 4 units, so what changed wouldn’t help you out. The property is two duplexes, but the lots weren’t properly set up for that. Because of that, conventional lenders wouldn’t finance it. We got the lot lines fixed and then changed it to 2 purchases instead of 1.

@Frank Lorenzo personally, I don’t need that information before making an offer. If I was a seller I would want the offer first to know someone is serious before releasing that information to someone I don’t know.

Before making an offer I would just run my own numbers. The offer always has contingencies so if I found out later that the current tenants haven’t paid in months I could back out.

@Simon Hernandez By commercial multi family, I’m assuming you mean more than 4 units, correct? At that price point I wasn’t sure. The rate seems high. For comparison, I was just offered 5.9%, 25 year amortization, but that would only be locked in for 7 years. And I’m a small time player.

I was able to change a few things around with the property to allow for conventional financing instead of commercial financing. That was the only commercial quote I received before going with 30 year fixed at 4.65%, but again, what I went with wasn’t commercial.

@Jesse Dean I don’t really know. Sorry, I know that’s not helpful. This is one of those areas where I would love for some other investor to go first, because it could be a great way to make money, but I wouldn’t want to be first.

@Steve Sorensen you can still do the regular financing for up to 4 units, as long as you live in 1 of the units. Above 4 and it switches to the 20%, or even 25% in many cases.

@Jesse Dean I’m sure you’re going to get some negative responses, but let me start with a positive one: You are thinking outside the box and that’s a great trait to have. Don’t lose that trait!

As for the idea itself, you’ll want to research your local regulations more. You might also need to lower the price a little further, or decrease the number of beds. With that said, there is a market for this type of housing, even if I personally would not live there.

@Steve Sorensen As Amber mentioned... are you planning on living in one of the units of the triplex? If so, you would still be able to use 5% down owner occupied financing just like you would for a single family home. If this is an option, I would recommend this route over trying for owner financing.

I also barely made the cut. And yes, I remember the good ole days when a person needed a .edu email address to use Facebook.

Getting started was difficult for me mentally. I really questioned what I was doing and why was I taking on a new challenge. I started very slow, and my progress was also delayed when my wife’s job moved us from Minnesota to Kansas City. (Obviously that didn’t have to slow our progress, but we decided to focus on other things) Now we are back in Minnesota and on track to continue expanding when the right opportunities are available.

The only social media that I’m on is Facebook and I don’t use that as much as I should. I’m probably going to post more about my investments on Facebook. It might annoy some friends, but also might open the door to others.

I’m not sure on areas of the country. At this point I’m not focused on out of state investing. However, that is a goal of mine going forward as my growth plan involves a lot more passive investing.

I’m focused mostly on multi family right now. I’m very interested in passive investing and I might take the jump into that realm in 2020. I’m intrigued by opportunities to invest out of state, including a passive investment opportunity for mobile home parks. However, at this point I’m too small of a player to get too involved there.