All Forum Posts by: Evan Staats

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $450,000
Cash invested: $13,000

Bought this single family in Woodbridge to get out of an apartment in Old Town Alexandria and scoop up another property. Nothing major here. Just a solid single family home, well built, in an area that is perfect for long term appreciation due to proximity to DC. It's also less than 2 miles from the Rippon VRE station and in between two military bases. Capturing a large swath of possible renters from military to commuters into DC.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Space for pets and a large lot, 2 car garage, well built home, we could live in it for a year and rent it out after

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Found it personally and we negotiated seller concessions and the chimney to have corrections before settlement

How did you finance this deal?

VA Loan

How did you add value to the deal?

Small cosmetic updates

What was the outcome?

Increasing the market rent for a 3 bed split level home by $700 monthly, rented in less than a week with multiple interested parties

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Do more research on the commute time to DC and I95 high traffic sections.

For those that think purchasing in the Northern Virginia Market is out of their scope here's the background on my wife and I's latest investment. Transparency, I thought I would never be able to afford Alexandria either.

We showed up to Old Town Alexandria and started renting. 4 months later we found an affordable house in Woodbridge we could get into for a year with low down, then rent it, in the mean time we recoup the capital from our other 2 properties to go buy again after that 12 months. We had a Airbnb that we didn't mean to flip, but we did because STRs weren't for us. We ended up shifting that profit to a property, along with our capital from cashflow, in Rosemont that was an absolute opportunity. It needed love and attention because of all the deferred maintenance. We got an offer accepted 20k below list, appraised for 60k above under contract price, and now the values just keep climbing because the comps just keeping going up for sale for increasing prices. All to say this version of house hacking has worked for us four times in a row now and in 3 years we have 4 properties (currently) one in a location we thought we never could afford. Taking the small steps throughout the years has compounded to this incredible opportunity. 

Don't over leverage yourself, start smaller and the bigger gems will show up at your door step before you know it.

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment in Salado.

Purchase price: $580,000
Cash invested: $75,000

Townhome in the highly desierd Rosemont area. Purchased for $580,000, appraised for $640,000. With $60-70,000 worth of upgrades including capital expenditures value will stand at $800,000.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

long term appreciation and value add potential

How did you finance this deal?

Market Research

How did you add value to the deal?

Forced appreciation

What was the outcome?

$60,000 in equity on the day of settlement

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Be a kind human and dont treat current tenants like they are worthless. Structure your offer to make it the most beneficial for you as the purchaser.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Yes, myself. Evan Staats, Licensed Realtor in VA. Specializing in Old Town Alexandria with primary residences and investment properties.

I appreciate everyone’s time. I also want to get one thing straight. I did not pay them before or after. They still have yet to be paid for the work they did and everything was sorted with the owners of the company. 

Looking for some legal advice here.

I hired a company to replace flooring, tile, and deck boards at my newly purchased Airbnb. They completed the work, in about 2 weeks,  with many issues found in the middle and end of their work.  I brought up most of the issues along the way, and again at the end. They were never fixed once I addressed them between the two weeks. After the onsite contractors were finally finished with all the work, I found all the issues not to be fixed. I then took pictures of everything and coincidently found a garbage bag full of beer cans and two 12-pack beer boxes in the house. So the two guys at the house either drank the alcohol in 3 days or all in one day, while doing the work. Either way, they were drinking while on the job and at my personal property and place of business. 

Is there anything legally I can do as the customer/should do for this blatant disregard for workplace policies and respect toward personal property?

Thank you

Thank you all for your information and replies! I did just what majority of you suggested and call a multitude of credit unions and found literally one out of 8 or 9 that offers HELOC on investment properties. Langley federal credit union will provide a HELOC at 70% CLTV. they are based in Virginia so I'm not exactly sure about out of state properties. Maybe works with VA,DC,MD. Again thank you all I appreciate your expertise!

In the north east/mid east area. Looking to see if anyone has any good recommendations on lenders that will provide 90% LTV HELOC on an investment property. Also allowing that HELOC to be used for a dp on a STR.

Just got through the process with a lender and they miscalculated the HELOC amount due to the fact it was an investment property and not a primary residence.

thank you!

@Dustin Allen

Thank you! Tremendous help I appreciate your insight. 

Hi everyone, I have a question in regards to seller financing. 
I have a seller interested in financing his house to me but he had one main concern. Since he is very unfamiliar with this process and this would by my first seller finance, the house is on the public market so he is contracted with a listing agent. he is curious how the commission for said agent is handled. 

I am not 100% positive on that answer so I was not able to speak intelligently on the topic. Could anyone answer this for me? 
Would the contract be void and the agent receive nothing or would the agent still receive their 6% at a closing with the title company?

Thank you!