All Forum Posts by: Ben Nelson

Welcome to the community and the wonderful world of real estate! :)

Wholesaling is a great place to start. It helps you build capital for flips, but it also more importantly forces you to really know value. If you can’t wholesale it, your numbers are wrong. If you can, it means you provided enough value for the flipper to take on the risk. You make some money while not taking on the additional risk, which is even higher if you’ve never done a rehab before. Then, ask whoever you wholesale it to if you can shadow the project a bit so you can learn that piece of the business before you jump into a remodel project yourself.

I agree with @Brandon Vukelich - you need to define what “good” means first and foremost. And as he mentioned, numbers on paper are not everything…make sure you’re digging into the market itself and making sure the numbers are real and sustainable.

Not everyone wants to do this, and I’m guessing your paying off your home was strategic for your personal finances and comfort level…but I’d absolutely look at the possibility of re-leveraging your personal home to buy some rental property. You’ll get the best terms on your owner occupied loan, and it will give you cash to work with as down payments on investment property. IF you choose to do this, make sure your cash flow from your investment properties is more than paying for your payment on your house (it should if you invest wisely and in the right markets). Your goal with paying off your house was to not have the payment, so having a net negative results from leveraging it to buy doesn’t make sense. But, if you can but right you can create an income stream from the rental properties that more than pays for your house payment. Leverage is your friend if you use it right. :)

@Jay Hinrichs I’d venture to guess labor costs here are quite a bit more as well. Materials aside, land, labor and permit costs all make it more difficult to build at a lower cost in the PNW.

@Jay Hinrichs Yes that’s true, most if not all of what I saw out there was slab on grade, we hardly do any of that out here. And I agree, I don’t think it’s a bad option, we just would need to change our current building philosophy to make it happen. I would be curious what costs come in at, though I know everything varies by area. I’m constantly trying to figure out ways to provide more affordable housing options out here...I hope it’s still possible. 

@Jay Hinrichs It will be interesting to see what other options need to come out for construction if lumber prices continue to be an issue. I remember when I was down in Florida scoping out the markets and seeing all the block construction...it’s interesting how different areas have different building practices that are “acceptable” within the eyes of the market. Out here I’d think we’d have to do some major consumer education to overcome what likely would be a perception of lower quality building to make that kind of a shift. Not to mention all the builders who would have a completely different system they’d have to figure out. But rising costs may force the issue.

Welcome @Stacey Patten

Depending on which product you land on (single family vs multi) I have some great connections in Nashville including a commercial loan broker.

Let me know anything I can do to be of help as you start your personal investment journey :) your management experience is sure to come in handy!

@Victor Tran We talk about both the Portland metro as a whole and also Yamhill county and the surrounding suburbs. Most other groups meet in Portland and talk about the city, so we definitely are trying to make sure we discuss some of the areas outside the city since not everyone invests there. A lot of our group invests in the Yamhill county area, but we do discuss the other suburbs around Portland as well.

Our next meeting is April 22nd. We have a low cap for in person attendance but will facebook live the meeting as well. The focus of this meeting (and one of the main goals of the group in general) is deal review and analysis, so if you’re looking at something currently that you’d like us to break down and discuss as a group we’re looking for deals to put up on the board and analyze. Feel free to message me your email and I can get you on the announcement list if you’d like.

@Jonathan Stone @Josh Gold @Joseph Crunkilton - would love to connect with you guys. We have a small but growing investor group that meets up in Newberg once a month, and we’re connected with a larger group based out of Portland. DM me your email addresses if you’d like and I can get you added to our notification list. We’re pretty limited on attendance in person at the moment but hoping things will continue to open up so we can host a larger group (plus with the nicer weather we can expand outside). We discuss lots of different topics, but the goal of the group is to connect local investors as well as breaking down deals and numbers together. We’re not the “fly in an expert and let them sell something” type of investment group. ;) We’re the down in the details, breaking it down and discussing relevant topics and creating opportunities for investors to learn and work together type. Hope to connect with you all!

Thanks @Grant Schroeder for the mention.