All Forum Posts by: Jason Chen

Ok, typically a rental that I have will get about 15 inquiries I think over the course of a 7-10 days after a list on craigslist and sign in front of the duplex.

I'll get like 2 serious applicants, and 1 of them will be able to take it.

If you got 100 inquiries in such a short period of time, I think you actually set the rent too low. Don't cheat yourself out of your own money - that money is going to be necessary for you to keep up with upkeep and other costs you have to pay just to maintain the property.

 The "both" places you're talking about, where you can get both appreciation and cash flow are the best for me and my kind of profile.

I feel like they only exist in certain, small, niche, particular markets in the US and there aren't a ton of them. Would highly recommend these places to a newbie investor because they offer the best of both worlds, and different exit strategies 3-5 years down the road when they might not want to hold for cash flow anymore.

I feel like it can be done and I'll give you an "outside of the box" type of answer to your question

With $200,000, it MIGHT be possible for this to happen. I am only throwing out wild hypotheticals out there because it MIGHT work for these more expensive properties. I have seen them happen with D class properties, but not so sure about the A/B class ones you'll probably be looking at.

Basically the most ideal situation for you is to find someone willing to sell their house or whatever to you, and they are in DIRE and URGENT need of about $200,000 in cash within the next 72 hours, and coincidentally, nobody in their social circle such as a friend or family member has that type of cash on hand. If the property is worth $1 million as a very fair price, they may very well be willing to sell it to you for $200,000 cash as a down payment, and do some kind of owner-financing agreement where they owner finance $400,000-$500,000 depending on how the negotiations go.

You then list the property for sale a week or two later for $1,250,000, and make your profit.

Knew a guy who bought like 50 D class houses in Ocala for $50,000 total. The seller's wife needed money ASAP for cancer treatment, and he just needed cash right away. Some of the houses didn't have utilities hooked up properly and were empty, but it didn't matter. The guy who bought the 50 houses sold them all eventually over time for $3,000-$7,000 to local drug dealers and made a big gigantic return in a fairly short period of time.

If you want to succeed with $200,000, one way to do it is be patient and wait for a ridiculously desperate seller. 

well heres the thing - you don't have to do any work at all as a real estate agent. you could pretty much never show up to the office and that's perfectly fine, as they get to collect their franchise fee each month. now some places, you can get in for just $150 a month or even less. and if you only want to stick with them for like a year, then youd only pay like $1,750 total for the year, and just quit the office and tell them you'll come back some other time (which theyll be ok with). the amount of knowledge youll gain from playing around with their sophisticated MLS program is really cool.

i really believe that becoming an agent for 18 months gave me a huge advantage, as the majority of people in Ocala are country bumpkin simpleton type of people, and the investors with money were commonly people from out of town or out of state. pick your battles and battlegrounds wisely. 

as far as "networking" goes, i didn't really form any relationships in particular with anyone that i didnt already have. i had a manager who was actually silly, but smart. some offices have this snobby attitude from some of the agents who think they're all that because they are the #1 in the sales office, and some are laidback and cool. our manager was a cool and laidback guy who was willing to help with anything. there was also this funny older lady who would always be on the computer playing solitaire in the afternoon whenever i happened to arrive at the office. should you decide to join an office one day, be sure to take a few minutes to scout out the place and see if its got the right kind of environment for you. id avoid the cutthroat type of offices, but in the end it doesn't matter as much as you think cuz youll mostly be at home.

this property is a small potential gem. not a big gem, but a small one

offer as low of a price as you possibly can and take the property. i think you will like it. i rate this deal a 3.5/10 if you pay asking

if you get it for $425,000 and finance it with terms, id rate it a 6/10. anything above a 5/10 in my opinion is a solid deal

 i think this is a fair appraisal and the 1.25 million might be an ok. i wouldnt go much higher than that, but at $25,000 per unit, that would make it 1.4 mil, which wouldnt be good

at $400 or so per unit, we're talking about a different class of property vs $650/month (duh)

I'd offer 1 million max because of all that square footage. gotta think about how much new roofing is going to cost to cover that much area (its gonna be a lot)

I think for $800,000 and below is where you start to get into serious bargain territory, and $600,000 would be an absolute steal

id avoid it

i smell a possible career-ender

 why not invest in florida....

$2,300-$2,400 in rental income with easy rentability (2/1 units) and a total cost of $150,000 (and that is retail value/turnkey)

This is why I am incredulous about a lot of these "value add" deals. 99% of the time, if the value could've been added so easily, then why doesn't the current landlord just rent it out for a higher price then what he/she is charging now? Unless it's a distressed property that needs renovation and rehab, and would certainly justify a higher rental price after its fixed.

Raising rents by $100 or even $50 a unit is a big deal. Usually what happens is a realtor will tell an unwise investor "yeah you can raise the rent from $700 to $850 a month". Then when the new owner tries to do just that, the renters move out, and the property sits vacant for months because it turned out that $700 a month really what the market is willing to accept. Maybe $725, but not even $750

you forgot to tell us the most important detail

What is the price? Just by the sound of it, if its being offered at $125,000 or less, I'd go take a serious look.