All Forum Posts by: Cristina S.

Hi Carl,

You mentioned cash buyers in your profile. 

Do wholesalers sell only to 100% cash buyers or they also consider some who use some leverage?

May I ask whether there will be a November meeting? If yes, when and where?

Thank you!

That makes sense - thank you!

Roman, you are able to send offers site unseen? Are listing agents OK with that?

We tried one recently and the listing agent said "you must see first". We did and said no.

As a local, I feel that not all of these North Atlanta areas will necessarily appreciate or even keep their value. 

Some, like parts of Sandy Springs, were not BAD to begin with but they are becoming less than what they used to be. They MAY turn bad over time. It has happened to Dunwoody, a formerly great part of the north Atlanta area which is ...well...not so great anymore.

Correct. Haven't seen a single duplex or triplex in  months.

I would love to - but my husband feels that we would leverage too much too soon with 2-3 units. He wants just one first and if all goes well, add another one in a year or two. But maybe we should not be such chickens and put less down?... 

Like put only 40,000 down on a 110,000 property maybe? But then the cash-flow will be even worse.

As for saving, this has been the easy part for me; the RE investment decision, that's what I find difficult. 

Even after suffering serious losses during the Great Recession or more permanently, during the Great Parenthood (which is getting more financially taxing by the day) - we still end up with a bit of money sitting at the end of each month. Then again, we are older than many of the posters here...so at our age, we'd better be able to save some after busting our backs for years for employers. 

My only luck is I hate shopping. My husband says I have such unrealistic expectations of everything I end not getting anything at all. :-))).

Now I want to invest and don't know how. :-(

Roman, 

Are you doing this through MLS and from Florida - or you are going the wholesaler/off-MLS route?

We've only been doing MLS but find it hard even when living here, I can imagine the process is even more difficult out-of-state.

We've been favoring better areas because I feel that, over the long term, a better property in a better area is simply a safer investment, more likely to preserve its value or even appreciate.

Hey, who knows if later I may even want to put one of my own children in one of those - when they are in college or otherwise starting out in life? You never know.

I feel uncomfortable with the idea of owning something that could literally disintegrate or "go slum" under my own eyes. Hence the so-called "A"-s - though I'm not sure this is what we've been looking at. I think what we've seen are B-s or B-s in some A areas but I may be wrong. 

I also think there is a difference between A areas and A properties.

For me, A is where the ones who would never need to rent live. (:-)))))) ). They OR their young adult children - who may live in condos they own (courtesy mommy and daddy) as they start out in life.

My husband says that I have a distorted view of RE in the US and that in RE terms, A is probably what I call B, B is what I call C, and C is where you are lucky to come out alive every day. I even heard there's such a thing as D - and wonder whether there's Armageddon there? 

I don't know...but to the investors who venture in C-s and D-s, all I can say is "Thank you for your service!".

Having understood that, we are looking at B-s too but some can be a bit on the cringe side for me.

From what I have seen, even with a conservative RE approach, the REIT investment would only give us half of what we could do with RE.

Plus when all is said and done, the a RE will be paid off and will continue to generate good cash flow, possibly appreciating over the long term. REIT-s don't do that. Correct?

Yes, we plan on going with the 30 year.

Thank you so much, Roman. 

I appreciate your encouragement because we almost gave up. 

We got so frustrated last evening because we felt like we are doing something wrong with such low cash-flow; but we still don't feel comfortable with throwing in these extra savings into our current retirement plans. 

We're putting enough in that fuzzy market I have no understanding of - as is. 

I also don't want to just "buy ice-cream" with it. I assume many women could quickly do away with 50,000$.  Between designer clothes and a shiny new car, the problem could be easily solved. But I hate shopping - both for clothes (they never fit well) and for cars (I don't get the appeal). :-) 

And now I am discovering I hate shopping for houses too! 

I just wish I could have SO MUCH money that I didn't have to shop for anything! Others would do it for me and would do it well.

The 50,000-60,000 (in addition to emergency fund) just sit in the savings. 

We want to do something with it instead of giving it to the bank to pay us less than 1% on it. 

So we thought that if we got a small property, leveraged some and paid it off with the help of a tenant, we could end up having a little thing that keeps on giving later on. And maybe add 4-5 more until we retire. 

This was the initial thought - but then I came on BP and discovered this mystery world of large cash-flows, and "deals of a lifetime" acquired in millions of ways just NOT MLS, etc.

And things got really fuzzy. :) 

Yes, we are looking at Marietta, Smyrna, Roswell, maybe Sandy Springs - but the latter is not heading anywhere good, I can tell you that. Are you calling all of these "A areas"? What about B-C neighborhoods in A areas?  

I have seen Buckhead and Dunwoody decline over the years under my own eyes - now Sandy Springs seems to be "turning" too.  So I am not sure about appreciation and rent increase. We're not even counting on those. We're terrified of depreciation, if anything.

So we're thinking to expand further north into Ackworth, Woodstock, even Cartersville. Roswell and Alpharetta barely turn anything under 150,000.

This may or may not be a good idea. But...at least you've confirmed we're  not complete dupes when it comes to the cash-flow.