All Forum Posts by: Kristyn Grimes

Overanalyzing = me in a nutshell

Thank you for your honesty. Like Steve said, I'm not totally convinced I want him on my side or any agent. I'll soon have access to MLS myself and/or I can drive for dollars on my own. On the other hand, if I did choose to bring him on, I don't want him to feel like I'm using him if we have to dig through 40 deals before the numbers make sense to me because he's not running them (not his job). It must be maddening to have a client who just needs you to come open the door so they can do a quick walk through to decide if it's a good investment anyway. I don't want to burn anybody out, up to and including myself. Perhaps I should just wait on bringing an agent on board until I have my hands so full with managing my properties that I don't have time to look for the deals.

Great! Exactly what I needed. Thank you, Greg!

 Morning Steve,

Always nice to see your name come up in a thread. :) I think you may have misunderstood my situation. This all happened in a couple of weeks two years ago. I haven't spoken to him in almost that long because we were settled and had a new baby. He's gotten plenty of money from us from securing a lease for us on behalf of our old landlord and the 3 referrals from us he's closed on with median home prices of $375k. I just posted my response to another BP member that might clear things up. 

-K

Good morning, Brenden!

Thank you for your in depth response. So prior to this text he and I had briefly chatted about investment rental properties because it was something he brought up and the conversation more or less was "this is what I'm doing as an agent because I have access to the MLS to see what's coming up before the general public and have you guys ever considered real estate investing?"

Subsequently, my husband and I decided that investing may be something that we would start to investigate and had told him so, but also that we are due diligence people and don't just jump out and make decisions with tens of thousands of dollars on the line. 3 days later we got that text. The more I reflect back on it and knowing that he's a type A go-getter, I think when I said we were interested in investing he went ahead and just threw us in that bucket.

As far as not closing any deals with him, we had only secured him as our agent because we were looking for a rental property for ourselves. Meaning we were combining households before we got married and he is an expert in the area we were moving to. Essentially we hadn't begun the process of putting together our spreadsheet that runs the numbers, knew what kind of properties we were looking for, or even how to be a proper and ethical landlord. Perhaps it was my fault for the lack of clarity that I didn't tell him that we needed to secure all those things before going ahead. I guess the moral of that story is do not give anyone the green light until you're actually ready to hit the gas?

And full disclosure after reading what I posted yesterday I gave him a call. We made some small talk and I slowly worked my way into asking him about his latest investments and mentioned that I was pretty much ready to go. He launched right into mentioning the neighborhood he was sending me automatic lists for and if we were still interested in that area. 5 minutes after that he says that he wouldn't invest in that area because it's been such a hot neighborhood to flip homes that the majority of the residents are renters and so property values are starting to decline...? To be honest, he confuses me and just gives me a weird feeling because why would he encourage me to invest in an area that he knows is already oversold? But on the other hand he knows absolutely everyone and even mentioned that once I got my license he could mentor me or find someone who would. 

I thought finding a general contractor was going to be harder than finding a good agent. I'd also like to say that I wish I hadn't said scumbag realtor. He's definitely not a scumbag and that was super unprofessional of me. Moderators, if you're reading, I'd totally be okay with you editing my title from scumbag to odd fellow LOL.

Short and sweet question: why is the SELLER responsible to pay rollback taxes? How do they know if the land will be rezoned?

 Hi Matthew, 

Here in Houston those types of properties are very common. The single family home in front is usually occupied by young professional couples or a couple of roommates who all qualify for the rental terms (i.e.- three times the rent for each individual, not collectively). The garage apartments in the back are excellent for singles or students because they're smaller and usually a little bit less on the rent cost. 

if you'd like to look up some examples of those setups here in Houston and you're using the BP insights or other data tools, look up zip code 77004, 77005, and 7700 6. There's other similar neighborhoods around Houston but those are the desirable areas for the detached garage apartment setups because the majority of the homes were built with bungalows in front and large detached garage buildings in the back between the 1930s and 50s and it's right near downtown.

Best of luck!

Ok, so as the day approaches where I take all my research and finally start making offers, I have been putting together my team for my BRRRR goals. Everyone is at the starting line except my investment-friendly agent. I know a guy (lol) and he's been great when we've looked for our own rental houses. He was great with answering questions when I had them almost 2 years ago when I decided I would become an investor. The more I talked to him about investing the more I realised he knew about it and did a little himself. Not to mention he's a marketing genius. We look forward to his Christmas photo on Santa's lap that he sends out every year reminding us it's always a good time to buy.

Now, with that being said, there were some incidents with him that at the time I thought were unprofessional. For example, I received a text message during the middle of a weekday saying he had a hot deal and needed someone to invest with him 10K each. I called him no more than 30 minutes later and he said don't worry about it he already found someone for the deal and thanks anyway. At the time I knew absolutely nothing about investing and I thought it was brash and unprofessional to just text someone for 10k randomly. Two years and thousands of research hours later, I know a heck of a lot more and realize that he probably just sent out a mass text to investors he knew which is how you play the game, right? I haven't really spoken to him since that and we used a family friend to purchase our house recently instead of him because it put a bad taste in my husband's mouth.

I say all this because I am in the process of getting my own real estate license but I really feel like I need someone a hell of a lot more seasoned than I am on these first couple of deals to learn the ropes. I really enjoyed this specific agent's tenacity and he was able to always tell me what I needed to hear and give me a very rough estimate of the things that might need to be replaced on all of the walk-throughs we ever did. How do you know if you have a good real estate investment friendly agent or just some douchebag that's trying to grab deals out from under you for his buddies?

To be candid, I feel really silly based on the things I discussed with him regarding investing as if I knew what the heck I was talking about back then. The numbers that I was giving him on properties to find for me were nowhere close to what would be positive cash flow and I know that now. So I kind of wonder now if he thought I was just one of the umpteen million people who must tell him they're investors but couldn't even tell you the definition of ROI or cash flow.

As always thank you in advance for your insight, BP friends!

 Hi Michael,

so that's a really great point to use the DUNS number. I vaguely recall having to look those up way back in the day when I started working with international firms to see whether or not they had a decent enough rating for us to do business with. That's a great point!. I'll also need to look up the market average and probably find some more folks who do the corporate leasing here in Houston. It's inevitable that every time I post a question about something there's 10 other avenues I didn't think about. I guess that's why we're all here.  Thanks again!

 Thank you so much, Patricia! Since I'm not really well connected in the HR department for the oil and gas folks around here I figured that would be my biggest obstacle. Thanks again!

I was wondering if anyone is making a decent dime on corporate housing. We just bought our primary 4/3.5 in a nice gated community about 20 min outside the hustle and bustle. Tbh it's probably more than we needed but the numbers worked out, especially with the near zero interest rate we got in March ($1800/mo). 

I'm looking to make my first BRRRR purchase here in a few months and have really been looking into house hacking meaning we'd move out of here and into there. Obviously we've only paid down about $11k of our mortgage so selling it right now wouldn't make dollars and sense.

I've been thinking about possibly turning our home into unfurnished corporate housing that I'd manage myself or use a company to get my foot in the door. I have no idea what that entails but it's a HUGE industry here in Houston because of our local economies. Any thoughts, suggestions, dire warnings?