All Forum Posts by: Jared Hottle

As everyone has said it depends. The biggest thing are what do other comps in the area look like as that is your competition. Go on Facebook sites or zillow/apartments.com and look at pictures. I would say replacing flooring if dated or in bad shape, painting to a neutral color, changing light fixtures and outlets/switches are usually the biggest return on investments but not always the case and sometimes if the kitchen or bathroom is bad doing work in there returns some good value.

 I was going to start typing but then saw this from @Nicholas L. and wow. If you can just do these things consistently amazing things will happen. I should get it tattooed on my body. Spot on

Any other agents or investors having issues with their emails going to spam? Any tips or tricks to solve that? I am building a solid investor email list and want to get in touch with them regularly. Has anyone used Mailchimp to do this? Any better programs out there? 

Tricky when a homeowner has multiple interested parties because a lot of times the offers essentially becomes a zero-sum game. They usually tell other interested parties what offers are coming in at to try to create a bidding scenario and rarely do a highest and best as you would see on on market deals.

I think your best bet is just keep the conversation lines open and be as nice and accommodating as you can be people do still sell to people they like. 

Lastly taxes will be paid at the time of sale as you will not have clear title without it. So they will use the proceeds of the house to payoff their delinquent taxes but you certainly could write in the purchase agreement that the buyer will be responsible for catching up taxes. They may be very appreciative that you would take care of this but just make sure you know what that number is so as to not offer more than what it is worth. 

#1 have open and honest conversations with him about your concerns of not sure what is fair. 

I have thought about doing this as well when people want boots on the ground and have money. What I always come back to is needing to property manage forever while they are extremely passive. Certainly they deserve it to be passive if they provide all the financial risk but I don't think its fair you will have to be the manager for the rest of time. 

The couple solutions I have thought of are you manage the manager and contractors as needed as well as be the point person when issues do arise. Make sure they are doing what you want and hire someone new if they are not.

Another solution is do not take a commission and do not charge an actual fee but put those on a spreadsheet what they would be each month and as soon as you get to the number he invested initially then have an agreement in place it is equal and you will hire a manager. The good thing about doing it this way is you save your partnership money in the critical first years and can make repairs and get rents up cheaper and easier.

If you are talking single-family it is much harder to sell with a tenant in it. You will limit your buying pool to only investors and they are more concerned about numbers than the emotional connections an owner-occupier would be. 

Additionally, scheduling showings is a hassle and tenants can get worn out quick with showings. As others have said they do not have an incentive to keep a tidy place and sometimes can be unruly. 

If it is multifamily, especially smaller multifamily. Having tenants is much more understandable. I typically try to tell owners to keep one vacant this allows for easy quick showings and opens the door for the househack.

That is definitely the concern with using a HELOC as a long-term solution. Especially in our current environment with raising interest rates. I would be conservative and add a few points to what the rate currently is when analyzing the deal and would look for a more stable solution as soon as I could potentially value add and refinancing or raising rents and refi to get my heloc paid off.

Ryan - welcome to the world of real estate where shiny object syndrome is a real thing. Especially starting out I think you are on the right track of figuring out which route to go down. 

In these situations I always tell people to do some brainstorming on what their competitive advantages are and a skill assessment on what areas of real estate investing they would be good at. 

Is your job flexible? Maybe driving for dollars and managing rehabs and doing the BRRR strategy would be a place to start.

Are you in school/just graduate? Buying a rental in a college town, living in one bedroom and renting the rest out may be a good place to start.

Do you have a construction background? Maybe look to help investors and make money as a sidejob and use that money to buy a BRRR and do all the rehab yourself

Do you travel for work? Driving for dollars and finding deals and then partnering with someone with money or who has rehab skills may work.

Lots of ways to get it done but always focus on what you are good at and what you can bring at least to start out.

Obviously Biggerpockets is a good place to start if you are an investor wanting an investor-minded real estate agent. From there I would start attending local meetups and networking with other investors and agents. See who other investors use and interview their agents. 

Also as an agent the more specific on properties you are looking for and the more action steps you take, the more serious the agent will think you are. Always remember agents get paid when a deal closes so although many are good agents working in your best interest, they will always prioritize the buyers who they feel strongest will buy and close when they find something that meets their needs and their needs are not unrealistic. 

As Nathan said you should analyze a deal with all the debt you will be putting into the deal. Are you planning on using your HELOC without any plan to refinance short-term? To me the greatest strength of the HELOC is allowing you to pay for a property cash, or buy a property and use your HELOC as cash for repairs and then refinance out once the repairs have been paid and payoff your HELOC. Then you can do it all over again. To have debt sitting on your HELOC without any plan to refinance and pay it off at the very least limits your options to scale and at worst can really throw a wrench into cash flow.