All Forum Posts by: Jeffrey Gagnon

@Kyle Godbout and many of those are more than 2 units haha, but the 100 was just an example number. i was trying to figure out how to narrow my scope and filter through properties, thanks

My realtor was recommended to me by someone on bp and she recommended this lender. I researched the lender and they have great reviews. he has been very helpful so far so i'm happy you said it seems like my current lender is good. I think as far as using my VA loan is concerned i will go with a 2 unit multifamily to start. Im looking to get about $100-200 in cashflow after expenses with both units rented out. My Father is a carpenter and a dam good one so i will talk to him about the age of houses i should look for and advice on looking over properties etc. i think 100-200 will be hard to achieve without any rehab. Makes me think i need to do more research on the va loan and see what i can get away with as far as what will need to be repaired etc.

i can expand my lender options if i want, this one was reccomended to me, he told me "3-4 units are very difficult to get done. Not because the lending guidelines are tough, but because you cannot find any comps for the appraisal. So if there are not 3-4 unit comps in the same area without crossing any main streets then lending won’t grant the loan. So would 1 -2 unit be ok." do you guys think this is reasonable or should i look for another lender?

@Stanley Parsley, im not afraid to make offers or buy, im currently living in japan and moving back to america the end of june, what i am trying to do is analyze properties. example have 100 properties nd then narrow it down to the 10 properties i want to walk to make an offer. 

@Rory Cummins so i need to be more specific what what i want to buy? all i want is a multifamily i can house hack and once i move out have decent cash flow after expenses. I feel like its probably in my best interest to analyze every duplex that pops up (i cant go above that because my VA loan needs comps and above 2 family that's difficult for the lender to do ) and just write down offers for every duplex and make offers on all of them once i walk them. what do you think?

@John Leavelle when i am screening how do i know i cant just make a lower offer? i could run analysis on every property and just make an offer that suits me on every property. my real estate agent tells me that the numbers on sites like trulia etc are not very accurate so im not sure how to shrink my pool of properties

hello bigger pockets!

so i am looking to buy a multifamily home and i'm wondering how do i decide which houses to dig into further and which houses to not. My thing is i have no problems making low offers to make a property work and make the numbers work. i just am wondering how i can filter out properties so im not analyzing every property on the market? for example if i were to analyze 100 properties in a month would i just pick the 10 that i think have the best chance of my offer being accepted? 

If your afraid to lose or not confident in your numbers, the lenders are not going to lend. if you are not confident in your numbers i would run them again. I have not bought a property yet but when I analyse I try to keep my number on the high side when it comes to expenses. From everything i read nothing ever goes 100% as planed so I would budget for the something going wrong so it does not kill your investment.  Even Brandon Turner with his recently purchased 4 unit that he bought for his daughter, he ended up $20,000 over what he planed for rehab, but he was ready for it and was still able to make his investment profitable. Plan for the unexpected would be my advice to you. 

I would agree with @Kuba F. and say since you and I are both beginners we should get our feet wet with something like multifamily that need a little work where you can do some smaller things and increase the property value by like 10% and you will have a cash flowing asset and lots good lessons and experience. However, if you are confident in your numbers i'd say go for it! And if you take the numbers to a lender (like the pdf that you can print from the bigger pockets calculators) may help you convince lenders to lend :) good luck! 

I believe you would have to pay closing costs. I just got approved for a VA loan, i don't need to put any money down but my closing costs from 100k -200k is $5000-$8000 in closing costs.

@Zach Quick im using a Va loan so i can only "rehab so much"  and since its a va loan there is no down payment, just closing costs.  i have yet to find out monthly expenses on most of the properties, today i plan on trying to find out the average prices of the owner expenses. and i have been researching rent prices in the city. i'm still living in japan and will be moving to Nebraska in June. 

Thank you everyone