All Forum Posts by: John Suralik

@Princston Terry Welcome to BP! Where is Rolesville? I'm on the coast. 

@Trey Read I don't have a ton of experience, but one mistake that I made on my first two investment properties is that I did not assess my needs to buy property two, and three when I was buying the previous property. Unless, you are going to find "creative financing," I would get a lender on the phone if I were you and tell them them what you are trying to do. I learned so much from my last deal, so now on the next deal, I know what the numbers have to be going in to refinance and get cash out. I know how much cash I need in the bank. Now I have more specific asset in mind that will allow me to continue purchasing the next investment property with less rebound time. 

@Scott Hubay Congratulations on working on closing on your first deal! Is it a duplex? Quad? 

@Charlotte Warn Welcome to BP! My local area has a webpage linked to the county website that tells what is being auctioned and when. A percentage is due when you win the bid and then complete payment is due ASAP. Most of the counties around mine have the same type of websites. 

Can you explain closing costs for different types of real estate deals? I'm sure that they differ from location to location, but what I really want to find out the different costs for different types of deals? 

1. Is closing on a bare piece of land the same costs as closing costs on a SFH?

2. Is all cash closings cheaper because there are no/less banks involved? 

3. Is an owner financing deal more expensive because the lawyer has to draw up more paperwork? 

4. Is an 8k SFH in Detroit the same closing costs as a 300k SFH home in Detroit?

@Benjamin Haberman I am not sure if this what you are asking, but I closed on a 3/2 in June with 203k loan and the termite inspection uncovered one tunnel towards a corner of the house. The exterminator charged one thousand dollars and gave a 10 year warrantee that they wouldn't come back if we call the company back for one hundred dollar a year inspection. My agent could not get any portion paid for at before or at closing. Also the funds for the repairs in the escrow account, could only be used to pay a contractor to do the work listed on THEIR repair list. 

In my market, I would want total monthly expenses to be as close to $1,050. Although, I see a lot of people say they shoot for $100 dollars a door. Locally, I can find $200+ a door on SFH. Although, I don't know your market. That might be a GREAT deal.

90 taxes

100 Insurance

130 pm

53 HOA

130 Cap EX

130 Maintenance

130 vacancy

526 mortgage

Total cost $1289

@Chad Howard I think it is a great question to learn from each other regard where you are and what the thing that you need to focus on to get to the next level. I'm really surprised there are not more replies to this question.  I listened to The One Thing on my commute to work and I am not sure that I drink the one thing Kool-aid, but I agree with the book that focussing on the next one thing has amazing power to achieve goals and move organizations. In RE there is so many parts of the whole that can consume our time and energy. A lot of which, have little impact to the bottom line. 

What is the one thing that is currently hindering you from getting to where you want to be? What is the one thing that if you worked through this year would catapult you towards fulfilling your goals? 

For me it is probably taking total control over our finances and getting to the point that I have six month reserves in the bank. Although we have acquired a large amount of equity, not having six month cash reserves is holding me back from creating the domino system for acquiring properties four through ten. I've thought about selling any one of our properties which have over 50k-100k in equity to instantly have the cash in the bank that lenders want, but I don't want to lose the long term benefits of keeping it. There are other ways to achieve having six months reserves in the bank than selling a property, it is just going to take focus. 

@Kyle B. I agree with Kyle. It seems like the article is really comparing buying stocks and passively investing in real estate. In The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the business of life, he tells tales of buying stock when all transactions were made and archived via paper. Prices were printed once a day, and if a stock was highly desirable or highly undesirable the price was what ever the seller could negotiate. His greatest returns (percentages) were during this period, because like real estate the market was less efficient than it is today. One of his break through investments was when he bought stock with book value 3 times (approximation from memory) their current price if he could talk the board of the company to sell off assets, which he did. 

In a way, most successful real estate investors are acting in the same basic premise as hedge funds. Seeing an opportunity to add value and making it happen. 

@Jeff Cox Congratulations! It sounds like you set yourself up a sweet situation with the house hack you got going on and you knew what your intentions were for the property. I keep seeing posts where DFW and California are hot markets. My local market has recovered some, but we are still not back to 05/06 prices and there are still quite a few REOs around. 

I live near two military bases, and I see a lot of military personnel get transferred and try to rent out their primary home to keep it as an investment and it seems to me that they are losing money. I don't see appreciation and mortgage pay down bailing them out.