All Forum Posts by: Justin Cambra

@Andrew Szymanek I live in Seattle and invest in Seattle and Milwaukee. I would recommend doing a house hack in Seattle for appreciation play and also invest in MKE for cashflow. This will be a diversified portfolio. Feel free to connect if you have questions. I’m guessing you got a job at Amazon so I can help with Amazon questions too as I work there. 

Good luck,

JC

Congrats on completion. Looks very nice. What were the numbers on the property? 

If you need cash quickly you can take a loan from your 401k at your job. The max amount that you may take as a 401k loan is generally 50% of your vested account balance, or $50,000, whichever is less. You can pay it back after the flip and you would be paying yourself back with interest. In the past when I’ve done this I’ve received the cash within 5 business days and less than 5 min to initiate. It will depend on your companies 401k provider though. Mine was through vanguard. 

If the numbers you quoted are accurate, I would present a higher purchase price if they agree to seller financing. I’ve been able to do this in the past with offer ~5-10% above cash price. 

Good luck! 

Philip Doetsch I think you have a good plan. I agree with @Taylor L on timing. I would take a min of 30 and no more than 90 days to get educated, find an agent/insurance broker/lender, and visit your farm area. In Milwaukee area for ~70K-80K you can get a duplex in a decent area that would rent for $600-$750/month per unit. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Good luck and enjoy the process. You will be hooked after you get the first one!

Kelly,

I recommend that you go to some local real estate meetups to see what others are doing. I do buy and hold and air bnb out of Seattle. Main two meetups I go to are Cascadia Investor Alliance and Fixated on Real Estate. Once you get more info you will have a better idea of your strategy and next move. If you don’t already own your house you are probably best doing a house hack given the economics of Seattle. 

Best of luck and lmk if you have any questions. 

JC

Shawn, I tried to do something similar as you described in Seattle. What I thought would be easy turned out to be a headache. Everything was going to plan until my side sewer permit was denied. I currently have my 3 tiny homes at a mobile home park until I get long term plan setup. If they do well at the mobile home  park I will keep them there. My fall back options are to sell them or wait until tiny homes are considered a legal dwelling in the state come 2020 which should allow me to get sewer permit. Key learning is do all homework upfront before buying/building. I bought mine from an existing air bnb business that the owner was retiring and needed to sell. I took the risk knowing I could always sell to minimize downside. If you move forward have an exit strategy just in case. 

On a separate note I use proper insurance for the tiny home insurance. 

Francis, what specific area and price points are you looking for? This will help you narrow down your target area. This is the info the community needs in order to help you. I’m an out of state investor investing in MKE but not sure if what I invest in matches what you are looking for. 

@Twana Rasoul im doing a hybrid approach. Im buying in the Midwest for cashflow and then using that cash to buy in Seattle. This is a good way to get cashflow and appreciation. Sounds like you are going to house hack so definitely invest there first. What I am learning is that cashflow is great but with appreciation you can really get some wealth.  Additionally you can accelerate growth if you can pull out the equity to roll forward into more properties. My plan is to move out of my existing house hack and into another’s house hack within next year as we see softness in Seattle and low interest rates. I’ll rinse and repeat as the economics make sense. 

@Yumna Zahid I’ve done air bnb since Aug 2018. The range in monthly net income varies widely (300-3200 net of PM and fees).  That is for a 3 BR and 1.5 BT that sleeps 11 by SEA airport. If the summer peak season goes well I’ll keep as short term otherwise will switch back to long term. Please DM and I can share more detailed financials.

@Paul Lee tunrkeyVR has been better lately. They replaced all the field ops and brought new experienced people from OR/CA to improve services. Services now is what I expected for the price. I’m still not seeing a lot of bookings though as I’ve beeb 80-90% vacant last 2 month. I will probably switch in next couple of months if occupancy doesn’t pick up to either another company or self manage. Let me know what you end up doing  

@Andy Zapata I’m warming up to the idea of self managing considering amount of money PM costs.