All Forum Posts by: Kevin Bazazzadeh

Hi @Emmanuel Offei! Welcome. Come out to the meetup next week and get to know some local investors. Hope to see you there!

Attention real estate investors in Houston! Join us for our 3rd meeting for a new meetup in the Houston Heights. Each meeting features a talk from a different real estate investor or professional in the Houston market with no sales pitches and only ethical investing advice. The April meeting featured Investor/Broker Chris Grizzaffi who shared a case study on how he used the BRRRR method on his first two rentals to turn them into cash-flowing properties simultaneously and the challenges that came with it.

This month our speaker is Jimmy Marks. Jimmy currently owns 9 single-family rentals with his business partner. He spent 10+ years on the sidelines, reading every real estate book he could get his hands on, listening to every real estate podcast out there, and watching hundreds of real estate investing YouTube videos. Then in 2020, he decided enough was enough and jumped head first into real estate investing. Jimmy will be discussing his real estate investing journey, what he wished he’d known about investing in the Houston market when he got started, and the tips and tricks he has used to find success. 

Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out this is an opportunity to learn, network, and grow with other like-minded individuals. Mark your calendar for April 12th at 6:30 pm and be sure to come out. We will have time at the end of the event to network, but feel free to arrive as early as 6:15 to hang out or network a bit before the event starts.

See you there!

Reminder, if the parking lot is full, there is parking right around the corner on Aurora St.

Hi @Larry Freeney welcome.

Wholesaling is sold by Gurus as a get-rich-quick option for real estate. I have seen many wholesalers come and go over the years and most of them never end up making any money. It is the same thing with most real estate agents, many of them get their license and sell a relative's house, and thats it. If you are serious about starting a wholesaling business there are 3 things you will need to be good at (or hire these skills) to be successful:

1. Marketing - Marketing is the lifeblood of wholesaling. If you aren't doing enough marketing you will not be able to generate enough leads. ex. Direct mail, Cold calling, SMS, PPC, SEO.

2. Sales - Getting the lead to come in is just the beginning. You need sales and follow-up in order to nurture and convert those leads into contracts.

3. Disposition - This is where your cash buyers come in. You will need to dispose the contracts to buyers to make money.

If you are serious about going into wholesaling, set a goal that you will consistently market every month and will follow up with all your leads for a minimum of 6 months without the expectation of closing any deals. If you are consistently marketing, you will get leads. If your sales ability is strong enough you will convert your leads to contracts.

Wishing you the best of luck! I am in the Houston market as well if you have any market-specific questions. 

@Marcos Falcao here are your levers to pull on:

Equity - To keep traditional debt you outlined; you probably need to increase your equity position. You can do this by using a larger downpayment, or buying at a steeper discount. A lower LTV can make a property cash flow.

Debt - If you want to move away from traditional debt, you can use creative solutions like seller finance to get a more favorable rate. Here you can set terms that aren’t constrained to a bank’s lending requirement. Just have to get the seller on-board, which most won’t be, but you only need one.

Income – Look at ways to maximize rent. You mentioned rent comps at $1,500 to $1,800. Could you rent by the room? Could you add a bedroom to get a bump in rent?

Location – Are you looking in an area that is already established? You could look to buy in a gentrifying area where you can see that the path or progress is moving.

Right now, is a time to sharpen our axes as investors. In this market it is harder to just stumble onto a deal, we need to be figuring out different ways to make deals.

@Rachel Sommers awesome! Looking forward to meeting you. 

Attention real estate investors in Houston! Join us for our 2nd meeting for a new meetup in the Houston Heights. Each meeting features a talk from a different real estate investor or professional in the Houston market with no sales pitches and only ethical investing advice. The March meeting featured local investor Todd Gaspard who discussed how powerful real estate returns can be over time and showed how his real estate portfolio crushed the S&P 500 and his own 401k as a NASA engineer in the 3 decades he has been investing.  

This month our speaker is Chris Grizzaffi. Chris has been involved in the real estate and construction industries since graduating from Texas A&M in 2002. He found success as a realtor in 2011, winning Rookie of the Year and being recognized as HAR's Top 20 Under 40. Chris has a passion for investing, and he will share a case study on how he used the BRRRR method on his first two rentals to turn them into cash-flowing properties simultaneously and the challenges that came with it.

Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out this is an opportunity to learn, network, and grow with other like-minded individuals. Mark your calendar for April 12th at 6:30 pm and be sure to come out. We will have time at the end of the event to network, but feel free to arrive as early as 6:15 to hang out or network a bit before the event starts. 

See you there!

@Caitlin Hunter it was nice meeting you and I am glad you were able to come out! The meetups are planned for the first Wednesday of each month, although next month's meetup will likely be pushed back a week to April 12th to accommodate our speaker - I will get confirmation later this week and post the meetup. I will also tag you in it to make sure you see it! :) 

Hi @Ody Orad , welcome. I think everyone here likes high property appreciation and high rental yield potential! :) Keep in mind that as properties appreciate, so do tax values. You mentioned you aren't from Houston, so I am not sure if that means you aren't from Texas, if that is the case one thing to keep in mind is that we have very high property tax rates. So as our houses appreciate, so do our costs and since we can't homestead a property we aren't occupying, there is no limit as to how high the tax-assessed value can be from one year to the next. 

One thing that is important to understand is that you will make mistakes and that is ok. It is very hard to learn anything if you aren't allowed to make a mistake. You just don't want to make any catastrophic mistakes - something like buying a house without an inspection when you don't know what to look for,  or buying a house with no reserves can put you in a situation with a much worse outcome. 

Since you are just starting out, one of the easiest ways to understand the rent prices and demand for one of the suburbs is just to look on Zillow. It's easy to use and free. There are tools you can pay for, but you still need to put in the reps to get an accurate feel for an area. Here is how you can start getting a feel for an area:

1. Look at the rental demand:

-Start looking at the properties that are listed for rent

-See how long the property has been listed, and how many contacts and applications they have had. Also, look at the price history and see what it has been doing over the years. 

-Look at what rent price the houses are listed at for each size and type (SFH 3bed/3bath and sq. footage)

2. Look at the cost of ownership

-Start looking for houses that are listed for sale for each size and type (SFH 3bed/3bath and sq. footage)

-Look at their tax rate and HOAs

3. If you find an area where houses are getting lots of contacts and applications and you see the rent prices could work with the purchase price and the ownership costs you probably have a good area to dig deeper into.

Last thing to mention -make sure to check if it is in a flood zone, as flood insurance would be an added cost, and make sure to check if there is a MUD tax, as that can be an added cost as well. You can check taxes on hcad.org and flood info for Harris county on harriscountyfemt.org

If this seems like a lot of work, it is. Understanding your market is critical to being a good investor. If you find an area that seems promising, or you get stuck on something while analyzing, let us know and we can give you more specific feedback. Best of luck!