All Forum Posts by: Tyler Weaver

I have a similar situation. I blocked it in. Benefits include not having to mess with the exterior facade to match when filling in.  If I was already doing siding or something like that, then the decision could have been different. 

If it was me I would prefer to start using whatever lending ASAP and only reaching into a smaller portion of the 100k line. That way you can move faster if you want to. 

Do both your wife and you work full time jobs?  

If so, and your timeline is fairly long, I would focus on forced appreciation opportunities.  Things like low occupancy multis that need work to turn them around, or sfr's that are distressed.  Fix them up with the 100k, then turn around and refi them to get your credit free again and repeat.  The goal is not to keep your 100k tied up for longer than a couple years at a time at the max.  6 months or less at the min. 

If you want to discuss this in depth I would be happy to grab a cup of coffee sometime.

Spring Valley is a great bank

A primary residence? Fixed or ARM?

Cincinnatus savings and loan 

Guardian/Union savings

Valley Central 

Those all have good options for rehab funds.  

Now if they are going with Fannie Mae then it almost doesn't matter what bank they use.  Having a knowledgable loan officer who will spend the time to make sure everything is done properly is probably the most important factor there. Shawn Huss from Talmer Bank and Trust was very good for a conforming loan I had. A few of my friends have worked with them as well. One for a new construction and another for a situation that required a bit of navigation. 

I am not sure what your goals are. A deal cannot be good unles it helps you in that direction. 

100k is definitely enough for a sfr in Cincinnati as a rental. Probably a duplex as well, and a stretch for a quad.

I personally find it risky buying properties that do not have toom for forced apreciation.  Meaning a property I can improve to add value.  I could buy a 40k house and put 20-30k into it and be doing pretty well in many neighborhoods in cincinnati. I look for the value to be over 80-90k in that example. Many places will lend the funds for construction as well.

Feel free to reach out  I would be happy to grab coffee and discuss this further.

If its hardwood, paint is good.  If its a stair built out of pine lumber that was always meant to have covering, or was a staircase downstairs, the rubber treads are a great option.  Either paint the risers first, or get the rubber for the risers. I have never done this before though.

I would definitely not carpet common area stairs.  

1200 seems way high.  I paid less than $600 to carpet stairs and 600sq ft of space recently, including carpet pad and labor. 

Labor is the biggest cost, not materials.  A lot of contractors buy from lowes and home depot. at 8-10am on a weekday it is pretty crazy in my local home depot.  You can get accounts at building supply stores, but honestly at 4 units, you are not going to be buying THAT many materials. If a contractor is charging 10% markup to assure he has the right materials on site at all times and you are not going to be there 3 times a day it probably makes sense to go that route.

The building supply shops usually specialize in certain trades, where you are going to be all over the map with little projects of each.  There are also outlet style retailers that sell excess flooring etc from larger jobs and also carry a few SKU's of discount material.  A lot of the builder supply stores are actually higher end materials.  Which will matter to contractors trying to work on high end homes but not much for a 4-plex.

@Shawn Tang Cashflow in your local market is most likely going to come from flipping.  There was a BP podcast within the last few weeks about a guy that focused on flips in orange county and LA county. Though doing flips is really building a business rather than "investing" in my opinion. You are making money primarily off of how well you can do forced appreciation.  One of my favorite things about the business is that its fairly easy to wrap your head around.  Move in ready property is a product that the majority of Americans want for their families.  

If you are investing out of state, I would encourage you to look into multi family properties. If you are managing a multi family remotely, you will have the ability to fly in and really inspect the place personally, when you make a decision to do something, it can be applied to all units rather than just a unique situation in an SFR (all sfr's are beautiful snowflakes) The disadvantage is that if things start to slip from your control it will effect the quality of the entire property, encourage the good tenants to want to move out and bad ones to move in.  

Reporting from the midwest here. The reason why out of state investing can cashflow is because there are many other areas where people do not bid up the prices based off of hope for appreciation. I have not done out of state investing, but it is definitely not something to be taken lightly.. 

You did not mention what your goals are.  This is going to impact what you want to do significantly.  There is a difference between trying to do something "smart" with the money you are earning from your career or wherever you stockpiled 80k from and trying to retire in a couple years. 

I third the go both routes option.