All Forum Posts by: Geoff Husa

@Mike Neubauer awesome! Will DM you! Btw I’m a fellow photog, though I tend toward portraiture.

@Mike Neubauer hey I'm an az native from the east valley area (Tempe) but living overseas at the moment, in Papua New Guinea. I fly over you from LAX all the time :) I'm in a similar boat as you looking into getting into the phx area market here soon and researching it from afar. Only difference is I'm a total REI noob yet. Sounds like you've got some experience behind you that will help quite a bit. Anyway, it would be good to connect and somehow be able to be a help and an encouragement in REI and portfolio growth.

@Bob Okenwa

@Ryan Hoover

@Nick Brockelman

Thanks guys! Lots of good info there to help me process things in the future. The zoning and easement things, I hadn't even thought about, though I did see that workshop butted up against another property. I did check the county assessor's website to see if any of the property boundaries may be being infringed upon by the workshop. It appears they have not been.

Bob (and others), what would you suspect when looking at how many times that property has changed hands in recent years? What are the obvious kinds of things that would result in that? I've looked at several other properties that seem like obvious flips. Looking at this one I'd guess maybe some investors have given it a go, only to be frustrated with the unexpected and then just offloaded it.

Thanks again everyone! Good feedback!

I am looking at a property in Mesa, Arizona that I'd like to put out here and get some of you all's thoughts. I am not in a position to do anything with this property right now. For me, it's just about learning, practicing running the numbers, and getting ideas. For you, if you're an investor in the area, and you like the property, maybe you wanna snatch it up for yourself! (If you do, I'd love to follow your endeavor and see what you do with it!) So what's your more experienced take on this property be?

65 S Alma School Rd, Mesa AZ 85210

It's got potential to become 3 housing units on one property. The existing 2 units don't seem to need much reno. The workshop in the back would be a complete reno to turn into a 3bd, 2ba unit.

Keep in mind I don't have any experience, and limited resources to base my numbers on, so I'm aware some of my figures may be way off. I don't mind getting corrected. Be kind :)

So I'm figuring the following: Strategy is long term buy and hold. Offer $305,000. $80,000 for rehab, including converting workshop area to a 3bd, 2ba unit. ARV $417,000 (ARV really difficult to guess on due to property not being in a neighborhood). Gross rental income at $3400. Based on my financing options, it seems this property could provide $950/mo cash flow.

I like this property as a rental because of it's location right near the light rail and a few other nearby conveniences. It's not the best area of town, but the individual unit rental prices reflect that. Also guessing the seller is getting more and more motivated seeing as to the recent price drop and how long it's been on the market.

Depending on how this conversation goes I might do more of these in the future as my wife and I continue to learn about REI and practice analyzing properties. Perhaps if I upgrade to pro, which I'm hoping to do sometime soon here, I can share the property analysis as well.

@Shiloh Lundahl any interest in this conversation? Hey, there's an RV park right next door...

@Brian Gerlach I agree with you on that. I think this gets down to the core of the issue. I was reading recently (can’t remember where) about how government policies tend to incentivise fatherless households with per child entitlements. While these seem to be designed with compassion in mind, they’ve backfired and resulted in a situation where, for many, there is more and better access to money/food when there is no father. I think these types of entitlements need to be slowly rolled back, and there needs to be education and compassionate people helping where they can to maintain the institution of family.

@David Hwang I’m also a noob looking to start investing in Phoenix area. Born and raised there. Greetings! Following this thread!

@Shiloh Lundahl I’d be curious what kind of difference in cash flow you would expect to see between CG and Gilbert. What would be a good expectation for a typical middle class home in Gilbert vs CG?

Also wondering if you’d think using your lease option setup in Gilbert would make it more viable?

@Melanie Johnston and @Lauren Kormylo thanks for the input guys!

Some more info I've been able to get: One of my friends who has a long history of REI (mostly wholesaling and flipping, but also dealing in on-market stuff) in the area was just telling me that there's a lot of airbnb type stuff in the area, but that it's difficult to net much. It just doesn't gross as much as other areas. As such it's a draw between doing STR or LTR. And since the amount of hands on can be so much higher with STR, unless you really dig that kind of stuff, then you might want to go more with LTR mindset. That was a summary of her conversation with me.

Wondering if further input from peeps would confirm this. I still have one more friend I know who does STR in the area that I'm waiting to hear from.

@Luke Carl thanks for chiming in. The picture that's starting to become clear from other STR investors in the area is that there's a market for it for sure, but the revenue is just barely enough to beat out LTR.

As for the randomness of my question about whether anyone is getting out of that market, it's not as random as I may have made it seem. I should have put some context. I just heard the CEO of Redfin talking about his expectations that we're going to be seeing a lot of airbnb peeps selling properties because of what covid has done to that market. In wondering how true that might be for the Phoenix area, I figured I'd put that question out there to see if people might be thinking of getting out.

You asked why not LTR? That's what's rolling around in my head as well. Keep in mind my wife and I are just now formulating how we want to move forward with investing. We've got about 9 months left before we can act, and during which we're planning on considering different strategies and approaches, networking with people to learn from and interact with, and continue to save as much capital as we can. So this whole question about STR's comes from a recent conversation I had with @Brian G. that just got me wondering if I'd even given a serious consideration to STR strategy in the area we're looking at.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Hey @JD Randall good to know! That's encouraging to see someone younger like yourself taking the initiative and willing to work hard! I'll definitely keep you mind as the time approaches and as work needs come up. I'm sure I'd have questions then too (as I would for any contractor) about licensing and knowledge of local codes, etc. I also have a friend who invests over in Maricopa and Casa Grande. Might be able to see if he's in need of help. As for myself, I am currently overseas, but planning on returning next summer and buying a property then. Right now just researching and networking and formulating exactly how we want to get this REI train moving! I'll DM you sometime if my friend has a need on any of his properties. Thanks for reaching out.