All Forum Posts by: Juan V Lopez

@Nathan Gesner - much appreciated, thank you brother!

If your desired next investment was either a car wash or storage unit facility, which would you choose and why?

1. • Build automatic car wash from scratch
   • Buy old car wash, renovate & stabilize
   • Build storage facility from scratch
   • Buy old storage facility, renovate & stabilize
   

My wife + I own a few businesses & rentals and are looking to move into a much more passive business with our next large investment. 2 lanes we've fixated on are storage units and car washes.

Our high-level criteria:
• Own the real estate
• As low maintenance as possible
• Lower west coast (California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, etc)
• Desirable asset when we decide to exit

I'm just looking for input from the community and perhaps opinions from those experienced in these areas. TIA BP fam! ✌

Grateful for your input, @Caroline Gerardo. Great insight.

I have about $200K from a 1031 to re-invest before end of November 2021. Typical commercial loans require 25% down (or 20% down with higher rates) – meaning the highest I can purchase using the $200K alone is about $1 mil (at 20% down).

I'm looking at a few properties/portfolios above $1.25 mil.

From my knowledge, the most obvious way I could make this happen is to put the $200K down toward a mortgage and then ask the seller to finance the balance.

How would you structure this? How would you approach a seller with this sort of proposition?

Thanks in advance BP.

“Live where you rent. Rent what you own.”

I’m sure many of you have heard Grant Cardone say this. I’m curious if anyone has applied it.

My wife and I own investment properties and had our minds set on purchasing our own primary residence before end of 2021. But after we dove into this theory, it has us second-guessing what we want to do.

The evidence is clear that owning your home is a bad “investment.” All expenses, no income. Big liability, not an asset. It’s wiser to take that money we’d use for a down payment and acquire more real estate.

But is everything about money? Even knowing that it doesn’t make fiscal sense to own where you live, is it smart to buy a home because you want a place where you can decorate it how you want to, put holes in the wall where you want to, and not worry about a lease ending every few years?

I understand all of this comes down what my wife and I get aligned on. It’s ALL we’re talking about this weekend 😂

Just curious to see if other investors rent their primary residence and your experiences. TIA 🤞🏽

From a close friend who needs help:

I purchased a SFH earlier this year using a hard money lender, had an appraisal completed at the time and all the numbers checked out.

Due to COVID, several properties in that area sold to investors, below market value! Now that I'm in the refi process, the appraisal came back MUCH LOWER because the properties purchased recently have not been flipped yet or refinanced. This means I either let the property sit with the HML until things start to move again (interest only loan 😣), or I bite the bullet and bring allot of 💸 to closing.

If anyone has any other suggestions please share with me!

@Account Closed – You're spot on – the bigger priority is keeping my retail shop alive. We can wait on the property. Stinks, but that's the reality of things. I really appreciate your opinions.

@Eric Johnson – That's what I was leaning toward – not a lot of wiggle room if things go even a little awry during the rehab. I appreciate your insights.

@Erik Hatch – I appreciate that. Haven't heard anything official regarding Mayor Lightfoot's directives in Chicago, but I can imagine it's just going to get tighter. Thanks for your perspective.

@Account Closed– thank you for the response. The property is in very bad shape as is, unlivable. Big fixer-upper. Unfortunately, small work on it would not be enough to put it on the market for rent.