All Forum Posts by: Hannah Krebs

Welcome @Phillip Cole Reed! Congratulations on your growing family. There's a ton of great information and great resources here, you're in the right place. Best of luck on your investing. You've already done the hard part: setting a goal and starting on it.

@Phil Sharp first of all, great job saving up and preparing yourself to get started! All cash purchases are a great way to get a better deal, but you can hold onto more buying power if you refinance and keep a mortgage on it. This will give you a huge head start.That being said, without knowing much about your background and experience, I'm with @Julie N. on this. Many people begin in real estate as a part-time gig, building up a stream of steady income before jumping in head first. Depending on what your goals are, it might even benefit you to have some landlord experience if you are looking to get into rentals before you ditch the W2 job. This will help show success if you start applying for investment loans in the future. I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer, I'm just thinking that it may be an easier road if you stick with the W2 income long enough to get your feet wet. You'd probably have to sacrifice some nights and weekends to make it work to get started, but the return on your time is totally worth it.

I wish you the best of luck, and I hope to read a ton of success stories from you in the future.

@Luke Wolmer, I feel your pain on this issue in MN. It can be very difficult to find a good deal without a barrier to entry using just the MLS. A little hustle needs to be involved with getting a good deal in a hot market.

I bought a house on the MLS in a market where most properties were under contract in less than a week, often less than 2 days. The house I bought had two barriers to entry: it was hideous inside (though the bones were great), and it was an estate. Most people were scared off by those two things, so consequently it had been sitting for over 90 days. It took a lot of sweat equity, but it turned into a great deal. I'd say look for barriers to entry that you feel comfortable with, and be ready to work to make something out of nothing. It all feels overwhelming but as long as you feel confident in yourself and the numbers, you'll be set.

If the MLS continues to be barren, I'd recommend spending some time getting involved with a local REIA. You may be able to find some deals that way, and at the very least you'll make some useful connections. Best of luck!

@Erika Graf,

The BiggerPockets podcast was huge for me when I wanted to get started. It exposes you to a wide variety of different types of investing, ideas, and tactics. I also read Rich Dad Poor Dad for the mindset piece. Any of the books offered by the BP store are great reads as well. You can also start playing around with the calculators and doing mock analyses on potential deals to start getting a feel for the market. Finding a local real estate investor doing what you want to do is invaluable as well. You can meet them at local real estate meetups (Google "mytown real estate investor association").

I would say you're off to a great start by knowing exactly what you want. It's easy to get overwhelmed to start off. Keep a laser focus, keep learning, and you'll be golden.

Best of luck!

Jay,

Having no experience in mobile home park investing I don't have much to offer you from that perspective. However, there are a bunch of BiggerPockets podcast episodes about mobile home park investing that you may find useful! Examples are episode 262, 246, and 075. A quick google search will reveal them all. In addition, the folks at the mast of BiggerPockets have syndicated a mobile home park in Maine (if memory serves). My mother in law lives in a senior community mobile home park and I swear it's the safest neighborhood in the area. They're not all scary, especially with how nice and expensive new manufactured homes area. I feel that a lot of weight falls on the class of park you are investing in.

Good luck out there!

@Austin Fox

My husband and I have had the same issue here in MN. We have been looking for 6 months for the perfect house to buy but are struggling to find them off of the MLS.

We are pursuing one idea that has been interesting. There's a plethora of split-level and walkout rambler homes on the market in our area. We are exploring the possibility of finding one of these homes in a medium density zoning district and converting them into functioning duplexes. It's possible in our market, and it seems that to get deals at present you have to be creative and do the most.

Best of luck to you!

@Justin Bearce to start off, I think that your plan is a solid way to get a good start. We did something similar with our first property. We needed a place to live and a project, so we bought a home that needed work. We lived there for a year and paid the mortgage, and made a solid profit when we left. So, it can be a great thing!

The second part of your question, financing, is a little trickier. Rehab loans would be in your wheelhouse as it sounds like conventional financing isn't possible, however these are trickier to acquire. Hard money may be an option, or borrowing from friends or family. Start with finding a good mortgage officer and seeing what they have to offer you! You never know until you ask. If none of those options work out, I'd say work on your credit and save as much as you can for a down payment until you're ready to rock. Talking to a good mortgage officer can give you a head start on preparing for future mortgage interests.  They usually have good ideas on how to raise your credit and get things squared away. All things considered, where there is a will there is a way.

Best of luck to you!

@Hank Austin, you can definitely portray yourself as the property manager if you'd like. If they are going to become your new tenants, it's up to you how you want to set up the relationship. Most tenants, given the opportunity to complain about things, will tell you everything you need to know. Simply ask them how they like living there, how the neighborhood is, what they like or dislike about their current landlord, what works and what doesn't, etc. People do not tend to be shy about those types of things. My neighbor at our last house was a renter and believe me, I knew everything that ever went wrong in that house. Best of luck to you!

The great things about Ethics is there really is never a solid right answer. If you are feeling apprehensive, there's probably a reason. I personally feel that this is very misleading, and try to always approach things in a transparent manner. Not burning bridges may help you in the future if you are looking to buy in the same area again. Perhaps there's another way to make you feel comfortable and not blindside the seller. Maybe a three year balloon? You would want to ask them what would work best for their tax situation and see if you can work within those bounds to still get the discount.

Welcome "officially" to BP, @Jonathan Herdina!