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All Forum Posts by: John Morgan

John Morgan has started 34 posts and replied 2223 times.

Post: Real Estate Investing For Rookie

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729

@Tom Wright

I bought my first one with a 1031 exchange. Then bought three more with a cash out refi on my primary home putting 20% down on 15 year loans. Then bought one a couple months ago with a 401k loan from my company that has to be paid back in 5 years. They all cash flow $3,500/months after expenses. 

Post: Real Estate Investing For Rookie

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
@Michael Gunn Hi Michael, I’m in the Dallas area too (Grand Prairie) and fairly new to real estate. I started a year ago out here. Bought 5 rental homes and put them up for rent right away. You will easily get 1% of the home value in rent. I list them for rent for free on Zillow and have dozens of inquiries the day I list them with 10 pictures. Real estate appreciates pretty good out here so far and the demand is extremely high. Let me know if you have any questions about getting into the single family home rentals around here. One issue I have run into is foundations are bad out here. I had to have foundation work on 4 propertIes last summer due to cracks in walls and doors sticking. They averaged 4K per property. So be aware of that.

Post: Buying Foreclosures/at Auctions

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
@Purvee Kondal What are some of the pitfalls? The courthouse should give you the title info If Its clean or not rIght? And I assume we can get pretty good info driving around and seeing the house and neigh hood? And assume they need major rehab and factor that in to the price? I’m thinking of trying this soon. So I’m just curious to your thoughts.

Post: Are the seminars valuable or scams?

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
@Brian Orr They all seem to be scams. I go to the freebie 2 hour seminars to learn a few nuggets about REI. But would never sign up for one of those rip off courses. Just research on your own. It’ll save you thousands.

Post: How did you get your first deal?

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729

Bought a vacation nightly rental out of state (Branson, Missouri) for 130k in cash 3 years ago. It's worth 180k now with realtors calling me to sell to their clients. I cashed out 67k worth of stocks from a Roth IRA, I had always tried to max out for something like this or an emergency. Put up some cash in my savings account and took out a HELOC for 38k. Paid it off within a year and enjoying the cashflow! We even visit it once or twice a year with the kids for a free vacation in a great cabin!

Post: Dead Equity - How much money do you leave in rentals?

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
@George M. I agree with George on this. Less headaches and good cash flow outweighs more properties to deal with. I’m new at the real estate game. Only been doing it for 4 years and have slowly acquired 6 properties. Two have been paid off with cash and the other four have 15 year loans with 20-40% put down as down payments. Most of you say I have way too much in equity and should pull some out and buy more properties. I would rather sit on only 6 properties cash flowing $3,500/month after all my expenses vs 20 properties and 20 loans cash flowing about the same. There has to be a point when we are content with good cash flow and less headaches. Find that number and quit swinging for grand slams. You will have more time for more meaningful things in your life..like spending quality uninterrupted time with your family 😊

Post: How to get on a DFW wholesale list

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
Originally posted by @Ryan Blake:

@John Morgan Easiest way is to make a post like this, call on every piece of mail you get offering to buy your home or bandit signs you see, and attend meetings like @Zackery Gholston suggested. The mail you get and bandit signs offering to pay cash for homes are wholesalers trying to find off market deals.

Know that most institutional wholesalers are marking up to 80% of ARV - repairs. Example: ARV of $100,000 x 80% = $80,000. Then take out estimated repairs needed, lets use $20,000. So they would offer this out to you at $60,000. Who knows what they bought it for. Maybe $50,000 or maybe $40,000. They don't just mark it up by $10,000 but instead use the formula above. This means each property will have a different profit for them. I don't have a problem with this at all. If they make $20k, $30k or $50k, good for them. I am only concerned about what I can make. This means you are left with 20% ($20k in our example) to cover your closing costs on the front end, closing costs and agent fees on the back end, holding costs, financing costs, any repairs needed above the estimated repairs, and your profit. If you can make it work with 20%, then you will have a steady stream of properties (probably about 10+ a day) to go over form all the big guys. New Western, Net Worth, Meyers Home Buyers, and Homewood Properties. If not, I would go to the smaller wholesalers. NextEra is one of those. Most of the others don't go by company names and will text you when they have a property come up.

All that being said, know that it is a very tight budget going through a wholesaler right now. This is because of market demand. The formula a few years ago was closer to 70% or 75%. leaving much more room for the investor. This is how a free market works and won't be corrected until the housing market cools off or until investors stop over paying.

I wish you luck and hope you make a killing out there.

Great ideas! Thank you.  

Post: Keep or evict chronically late tenant ?

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
@Matt Michaelson I just got burned by a tenant like this. She would get behind in rent by a month or so. Then pay the late fees and get caught up. I worked with her until she got 2 1/2 months behind. I finally evicted her and never recouped the $. That’s what I get for being nice and working with her after a job loss and other personal problems.

Post: How to get on a DFW wholesale list

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729

Thanks Zachery! I live in Grand Prairie too. I’ll look them up. 

Post: How to get on a DFW wholesale list

John Morgan
Posted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Grand Prairie, TX
  • Posts 2,246
  • Votes 2,729
I’m interested in flipping homes now that I got my feet wet with my first remodel. I don’t have the time to go out and find deals on homes that need a lIttle TLC. How do I get on wholesalers email lists for properties in my area (Dallas/Ft Worth area)? And how much do wholesalers usually mark up on purchase prices? I don’t have a problem paying someone 10k or more to find me a deal that makes sense.