All Forum Posts by: Jason Hollon

Katherine:

Welcome to Bigger Pockets, and to the Birmingham investment community.  I am a full time investor here, and am engaged in wholesaling, retailing, and holding property.

Send me a note and let me know what you are looking for in a rental property.

Also, we have a local Meetup group that meets once a month that you may be interested in.  It's a great place to network and meet other active engaged investors:  http://www.meetup.com/Birmingham-Real-Estate-Inves...

The local investment association (AIA) is also a good source.  They meet once a month on the 4th Monday.

What area of Alabama are you looking to purchase your apartment complex?

You should of course have liability insurance at a minimum, as with any rental property.  For hazard coverage, many investors only carry actual-cash-value policies which payout a specified amount of cash in the case of a loss in order to protect the total investment.  If you are using financing, replacement cost insurance may be required by the lender, which would cover the total cost of rebuilding the property.

Foremost is a good place to start for a provider (go through a Farmer's agent to get the best deal - Foremost is owned by Farmer's, and they issue policies in Alabama). 

I have also recently checked out some policies backed by Lloyd's of London, which are very reasonable.  Lookup Arcana Insurance (arcanainsurance.com) - they write these types of policies in Alabama.

@David Brodeur :

Welcome.  A good place to start to find some good agent and contractor referrals may be to come to our local Meetup group for investors here in Birmingham.  We just had our monthly meeting this week (with great turnout), but will be meeting again in February.  Sign up here, or shoot me your email and I can add you:

http://www.meetup.com/Birmingham-Real-Estate-Inves...

@J Benoit and @Bryan Miles and all other Alabama investors:

I recently attended a workshop on the new Series LLC law in Alabama, put on by a local attorney and CPA. One major concern we as real estate investors had was whether there had to be a separate bank account for each series (i.e., separate account for each property).

Apparently you CAN in fact use the master LLC bank account for ALL properties, as long as your accounting is proper. See the below code section that is applicable.

To J's point about the law not being fully tested in the courts yet, I am still on the fence myself about this strategy. You can always identify a pioneer by the arrows in their back. This will be an interesting development to follow, however.

Section 10A-5A-11.03 states:

You can use conventional mortgages for investment property, but that's about all I can tell you about it personally. You can find out more about it on this site I'm sure. I only use my own operating capital and private lenders.

To buy a wholesale property from an investor, you really need to be a cash buyer. That cash can come from your operating accounts, a private lender, or a credit line like a HELOC, but regardless you need to be able to close quickly. You can't close quickly with a conventional bank loan.

If you're buying off the MLS, they won't necessarily be expecting a fast close, so you can use bank financing.

Robert:

I am also in the Birmingham area. I do various things in the business, but I also wholesale a lot in the area you are looking at (Center Point, etc). I'm also friends with Jimmy (above). You can shoot me a note and let me know what you're looking for, etc.

Jason

Some parts of Ensley are OK for rentals, especially the Belview Heights area, and to a lesser extent the Ensley Highlands area. Of course, you always want to visit the particular street in question to investigate in person.

There is actually still some retail activity going on in the Belview Heights area, although not as much as during the boom of course.