All Forum Posts by: Gregory J.

I've worked my career in industrial facilities and am just trying to get started in real estate, but I think my experience is useful here.

In the US it is the employer's responsibility to provide any needed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to its workers, so the decisions are made by corporate folks/managers and may or may not be influenced by the workers wearing the PPE. Typically purchasing and safety folks in the company work together to identify a PPE vendor and order (almost) everything from their chosen vendor. If you are looking to sell PPE then identify and get in good with those vendors.

One big exception is work boots/safety shoes. typically the company arranges some kind of shoe voucher for new boots every 1-2 years.

individuals and small time companies are probably buying from big box hardware stores.

I'm working with the Trustees/HOA of a neighborhood to purchase a vacant lot. My intention is to acquire it and then partner with a builder to build on it and sell.

more backstory here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/44/topics/505...

The Trustee I'm working with told me that they would like to see a plan for what I plan on building. Since I'm not a builder and I don't have plans readily available I'm considering my options. 

Free option - Get a copy of an old survey from the county showing easements and setbacks etc and sketching the outline drawing of the intended build on the survey. For a "3D" rendering of the property take a picture of a home similar in design to what I would plan on building and superimpose it on a photo of the lot. Advantages - free Disadvantages - less than professional, and may not exactly represent what I'm building.

Most professional option - get a survey, hire an architect, $$$ - Advantages - professional, thorough, and accurate disadvantages - very expensive for something not under contract.

other option - get it under contract contingent on submission of an approved plan.

Thanks everyone for your great feedback on my earlier posts. It's been a huge help in pushing me to follow through on this.

Fellow newbie here who owns one rental in southern Illinois (St. Louis metro east). Here are a few things that come to mind based on my experience, some of which seem to get glossed over here on BP.

1. get a state specific lease before you need it and have a lawyer review it. (I used the free trial of eforms to write the initial draft. I didn't follow my own advice. no lawyer has seen it and fingers crossed none ever will...)

2. read and understand landlord tenant law for your area. I have heard Chicago can be tough in this respect.

3. understand your property taxes and how sensitive your investment is to changes. for example my rental went from $5500/year in taxes to $7000/year between 2009 and 2016. zero appreciation in that time. Illinois is property tax hell.

4. learn if you need an occupancy permit and how to get one.

5. talk to the utility companies about what exactly it takes for the tenant to transfer the utilities into their name and communicate that clearly to the tenants.

and here's #6 but I have no experience with it just a thought. It sounds like you are going to not renew both leases and update both units at the same time. Why not keep one month to month while fixing up the other? you can either learn from one experience and apply what you learn or you can pay for the same mistakes twice and possibly put yourself in a cash crunch.

not sure if @Matthew Paul is serious or not. in some areas maybe this applies, hopefully you aren't in one of those areas. Chicago gets a bad reputation just like St. Louis for being the shootiest place on earth. Some areas are bad, others aren't, and there are million dollar houses $0 houses and everything in between. know your neighborhood and know what you're getting into. good luck!

I found one by driving for dollars and am unsure how to move forward with trying to buy it. what are your plans once you find such a property?

why not use it as a church? talk to all the congragations/worship groups in the town that are smaller than this church and see if they are looking to upgrade their building. post advertisements for it at all the seminaries in the state looking for someone wanting to start their own congregation. maybe work out a deal where rent is based on congregation size that allows them to start out at low rent.

get the water tested and find out what it really needs and talk to a professional about what the right type of filtration for your specific water. I'm not that professional but I think a whole house filter would filter particulates like dirt but not chlorine. for chlorine you might need a reverse osmosis system for a specific drinking water tap to eliminate the taste as it's not practical or efficient to put an RO on the whole house supply. if skin issues from bathing are a problem you might need a softener. sometimes when kids have eczema doctors actually prescribe "bleach baths" where a small amount of chlorine bleach is added to the bath water. also many of the water treatment systems can be rented so maybe just rent it while they are there. regardless, proceed with data. water test, pediatrician diagnosis (if it's legal to ask for, no clue), and a system that is right for the application. sounds like the tenant is willing to help out which is awesome.

I think @Levi T. 's advice is excellent. learn to code as it is a new form of basic literacy. doesn't mean you have to write software for a living but it is a skill that will serve you well in business, investing or whatever you do for the rest of your life.

He is also right about you tube and streaming channels. find a niche and build a great channel. 99.99% of your age group is content viewers not creators. find what your friends and classmates are interested in and build the best channel you can around it.

Focus on and build on your strengths. One of your strengths right now is that you are 14. It is a strength because lots of successful people want to mentor and be a good role model to a 14 year old. At your age those people are generally seeking you out through promoting school events etc.

Right now you can't legally agree to a contract. you think of that as an obstacle now, but regardless of how you feel about it, you can't overcome it by anything other than time. Don't focus on what you can't change, focus on what you can do now, while you build a long term plan.

You have so many advantages compared to most new real estate investors. you have no expenses, no debt, no obligations other than school. you have the opportunity to build a long, wide, and straight runway over the next 4 years. Hussle to make money, keep your expenses at zero, focus on your education. Think of turning 18 as you taking off from that runway. you will be in position to buy your first multifamily househack, or whatever you choose as your first deal if you do the right things now.

another thing you can maybe work on right now is building a credit score. not sure exactly but ask your parents or a mentor. most likely way to do this is get a credit card or some store line of credit and use it to make a small transaction every once and a while and then pay it off to keep the balance low to zero. not a credit expert but something to look into.

63112 is great, something for everybody! right now listings are as low as $9,000 for a duplex up to $1,270,000 for an outdated SFR.

@Megan Greathouse is absolutely right about Delmar. north of Delmar and south of Delmar are different worlds and the zip code may be the only thing they share. Like many areas of St. Louis this area is very street by street. I think of it as "quarter block by quarter block". The same street can change pretty quickly when you cross another street. As others have said boots on the ground is the only way to know.

It's not hard to find people who lost money from being misled, especially in St. Louis.

Got to have boots on the ground that you trust.

@Casey Shultz careful with this kind of general comparison of rents within a zipcode as the finish doesn't justify the rent. More likely, the location and thus the rent justify's the finish. The $800/month unit probably has a 50% vacancy rate with very high turnover and the $1,250 /month unit is a med student who's parents are both doctors and cosigned the lease. St. Louis is in fact succeeding in attracting tech companies as seen by Microsoft's new regional office in the Cortex innovation district and Pfizer's new $200M headquarters in Chesterfield. I am very positive in the long term but positive development like this is very far away from the block by block dynamics of St. Louis.

@Stanley Parsley I only understand about half of what you said but I agreed with that half at least. sent you a connect and yes I'm getting my assets out in the field too not just posting on BP.

@Lane Kawaoka thank's for the feedback. yeah I'm basically trying to benefit from the fact that engineers are generally respected as a profession. trying to establish some rapport as a neighbor.

@Jeffrey Hotz affluent probably wasn't the right word. Median home value here is ~$350k so it is above national median but we're not dealing with million dollar homes. A scruffy yet handsome Ug waves at me on my way to and from work every day so I'm trying to differentiate myself from other mailers or advertising they may see. I understand that my letter isn't going to convince them to sell their home. I'm trying to convince them to call me first if they are.