All Forum Posts by: Eric P.

A gentleman not far from where I live is looking to unload 4 acres of commercial land through a private sale.  Its on a busy rd, growing area, and currently has 3 billboards that generate "$20,000 a year".  I'm very interested for a few reasons.

1) Its local for me and from what I can see compared to other land in the area is a very good price

2) The seller is not against doing seller financing which I'd likely take advantage of

3) he's willing to do a partial trade for some high end "toys" I own (sports car, motorcycles, etc.)

Before going any further I'll be researching the township's rules and regulations on billboards to get a better understanding.  They are all currently leased so I'll also want to see a copy of the lease agreement to be sure there isn't some weird clauses about a change in ownership.  The other reason I like this property is because it has always been my dream to one day own a Self Storage facility.  This could get me closer to that dream as I could possibly develop the land a few years down the line.

Wondering if there are certain things I should focus on, questions I should ask, etc. I'll likely make the purchase through my LLC should I go through with it.

Right there with you buddy!

I've heard driving for dollars gets some pretty amazing deals.   Find the houses that look like they need help and reach out to the owners with lowball offers hoping theyre in a situation where they just want out.  

Few years ago my father in laws sister passed away and he got the house.  We're in NJ the house was in TX.  He's wealthy and really didn't care to deal with the headache of the home.  Home was valued around 140k but he took the first offer around 80k just to be done with it.  Deals are out there.

This was our first purchase, so we're pretty happy with our 9% or whatever it was.  But you're saying every time you buy a home for $400,000 you can sell it a year later for $460,000 having done nothing to it?  Where/How do you find your homes?  Cause we looked for a solid 6 months, I like to think I do my research and I knew we were getting the home below market in a great area.  I want to get into long term rental investing, so any insight you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Old thread but I figured I should follow up on it. We did very minor improvements over the year. Cleaned up the landscaping a bit, painted, I put new shingles on my shed out back which I got for cheap at habitat for humanity. We pulled the carpet off the steps to give them the hardwood look (Came out great for cheap). The only other project was the guest bathroom which looked very dated and cheap. We spent a total of $500 on it and it now looks fantastic. 2 months ago we did a "no-cost" refi which took our rate way down to 3.5%. But more important the appraisal came in around $30,000 higher then when he bought a year prior! I just needed to add a little out of pocket and we hit our mark eliminating PMI, this helped us drop our payment by $400 a month!!!

Really worked out perfect and saved me from locking up an extra $40,000 in a tax deductible 4% mortgage to to avoid PMI from the beginning. Very pleased.

(Note: this plan probably wouldn't work for everyone every time.  We got a real deal on the house from a divorced couple that wanted out ASAP and we were non-contingent.  The house looked rough but only needed minor DIY repair to make it look 1000 times better which we were able to do ourselves.  The Brexit smacked down interest rates making a "no-cost" refi very worth it.  I had 6 great comps in the area all sell for a lot more than we had purchased for.  So the stars really aligned on this one..)

I am extremely risk adverse.  I'd much rather have a good night sleep then make an extra buck.  My wife and I are also getting ready to jump into real estate investing.  We plan on having around $40,000 to purchase a home somewhere around $125k-$140k without needing much more than $1,000-$2,000 worth of work.   We figure that will give us enough for 20% down, 6 month emergency fund, and around $7,000 left over during the purchase for any surprises.    

Wife and I plan on making 2017 the year!  Looks like we'll have about $40k we can use after leaving ourselves a 6 month emergency fund for our personal residence.  Our plan is long term real estate investing, our goal of course is cash flow for financial freedom, but big picture focus is forever retirement income as we're in our early 30s.

The plan is as follows:  $40k budget.

Lets say a home cost of $135k, taxes $4,500 (NJ)

Mortgage with taxes/insurance/20% down = $990 month

management, vacancy, surprises = $300 a month

Total cost = $1,290 month

Would expect to rent for $1,600 for monthly cash flow of $310

We would keep $6,000 in the bank from the start as the 6 month emergency fund.  Which would leave about $7,000 at the time of closing that we may need for any surprises.  This would give us a cash flow return of about 14% on the $27,000 down payment.  Obviously these numbers aren't set in stone.  But these are the ballpark prices I see for the homes I'd be interested in.. sound reasonable? Suggestions, changes, dose of reality?

Also probably worth mentioning my father is a handy man and I'm not bad with minor DIY myself, which is another thing pulling my attention to real estate investing.  We redid our guest bathroom for $500 using things we picked up on sale and at habitat for humanity and my in laws thought we spent over $5,000.

This is very inspiring as my goal is to get upwards of 20 properties while also keeping my full time job, which I saw you mention you also work full time.  I always wondered if its really possible to pickup 20+ single family homes while continuing to work full time.  I'm looking at the long term big picture.  I'd like to be able to retire in 30 years and always have that cashflow coming in from fully paid off homes.  Very inspiring.  Hopefully next year we'll pull the trigger on property #1.

We purchased our home without an agent, I have a family member who is a real estate attorney so I was more comfortable handling negotiations on my own and using my attorney. 

People that say "The seller pays the commissions" this is true, but we were able to get the real estate agent and seller to renegotiate their rate.  We essentially took what would have been the buying agents commission and split it 3 ways.  This saved everyone involved a couple thousand dollars each.  We also got closing costs covered which I can't help but think was partly the sellers agent trying to push through the deal to get that extra bonus.  This worked well in our situation and we got a great deal.  If you're going without an agent I'd strongly suggest an attorney though which could just zero everything out anyway.   

Its actually those 18x18 vinyl floor pieces that look like real stone.  We have them in our laundry room but they're extremely light, I'd really like the floors in there to be dark but I just can't justify the time or money involved in replacing the floors in the laundry room.

I recently used some minwax gelstain on a project and it was pretty amazing stuff.  I rubbed some on a hidden tile and it seemed to tint it very well, I think if I went with an ebony color it might do just the trick, then I could go over it with rejuvenate or some other basic floor coating every few months to help seal it in.

Thoughts or suggestions?