All Forum Posts by: Liam Goble

Eddie, I've never used HMLs, but I have had success developing a pitch and taking that pitch to friends/family to see if they are interested in lending me the money necessary. It's difficult to finally say to them "Hey, I'm wondering if you would be interested in lending me money", but if you have a "This is how I intend to pay you back", plus some sort of collateral, you'd be surprised at who has money to lend (at least I've been surprised so far).

Casey, I don't mean to be chasing you around, but saw the forum title before I saw who posted it.

First off, if you are not living there, you will probably be ineligible for the low down payment. If you're not living there, you're probably looking at 20% down for a non-owner occupied rental property.

When I run my numbers, I try to be as conservative as possible, ie: I want my expenses to appear high on paper, so when rubber meets the road, the actual expenses come in lower than my estimates, meaning more cash stays in my bank account.

From the gross, I usually take 10% for vacancy, 10% for repair reserve and 10% for management. If management charges 1 month's fee for lease up, your management expenses jump to 20% (10%/month plus 1 month's fee, which is about 8%, total of 18%, round up to 20).

Depending on the situation, water can be significantly more expensive. One of my units, has a lot of people living in it, but their water/sewer bill is consistently $140/month. If you've got three units and the water/sewer is combined for the three, your water/sewer bills may be surprisingly high.

What type of heat is it? If it's an old house converted to a 3-unit w/ central system, there would be no way to separate the heating cost per unit.

I usually check local rents by using both craigslist and rentometer.com

Casey, I have used the following sources for low priced homes/small multis:
zillow.com, trulia.com, homepath.com (HUD homes), auctionzip.com, auction.com. If you make contact with a Realtor in your area, you should be able to get you access to the MLS. In my area, small multis are few and far between, as in there are currently 909 listings and of those, only 5 small multis, and two of those multis are $1M+.

Don't get discouraged; buying one great property is 100x better than buying four mediocre properties. I've been 'aggressively' investing and have only purchased three properties in 18 months (five total units).

My aunt and uncle live in Silver Spring. I'll see if they know a Realtor they could recommend that you could then get in touch with.

@Will Spruill Sorry to hear about your experience in Indy. That being said, I am/was considering investing via a TK provider in the Indy market. Do you have a new PM company that you're using, or is your TK providing a new PM? Are you planning to not invest out-of-state in the future, or was this simply a TK pushing the limits of the market w/ poor PM to back up the investment?

Thanks.

@Casey Mcgoff Welcome to the BP community. Definitely spend some time looking around this website and many of the related blogs for ways to improve your investing strategies.

If I had to start all over again, I would purchase a small MF building as you describe.

Sometimes it's difficult to find MF buildings using any of the standard search tools (MLS, Zillow, etc). For instance, when I search the MLS, I want to find properties that have at least 2 baths (or 3, or ??). A property with one bathroom will only ever be an SFH.

For better or worse, I always bring my wife with me when we pick colors for our units. It's always a little risky to not use standard off-white, but I've found that my residents are generally happy to not have a standard apartment color on the walls.

We always use the same paint on ceilings and trim, just different finishes Olympic Delicate White, flat and semi respectively. All of my painter friends use Sherwin Williams. I've never shopped there, but need to compare prices as I start a few flips/large rehabs.

To keep track of my paint choices, I have a Google spread sheet that I share with my subs so there are no are relatively few mistakes.

@David Laplante welcome to the BP community. I am in a similar spot as you are: I helped to start a construction company, so I've seen what it takes to run the entire company, but there is one head honcho above me to make sure my day dreaming doesn't drift too far from the day-to-day needs of the business.

That being said, I am actively working to become my own boss with my buy-and-hold rentals. Like you, I too realized that I could work 50+ hours per week insulating homes and end the month with +$500 in the bank, but at a max of $6,000/year savings, it would be a LONG road to retirement. I don't want to take that road (I suspect the head honcho at the construction company doesn't entirely agree w/ my sentiments). There is a sense of "Think what we can create here" with the construction company. As I watch my 1year old daughter grow, more and more often I find I am asking asking myself "What am I missing by working longer and longer hours?"

In order to accomplish, see and do what I want to do in life, I have to be my own boss. I have to set up processes and procedures to better automate my business. I simply have to make it work, I can't have someone else dictating my schedule (except my wife...)

Good luck with your endevours.

A few years back, when the SREC market was really hot, many apartment buildings were renting their roof tops to solar companies and completing a power purchase agreement with the company. The SREC market has been in the toilet for the past two years, but is making a come back. Up about 5-8x from the lows, but still off the highs by as much as 80%.

@Steve Babiak Thanks for sending that along. My residents aren't generally college students, so the regulations would affect me, but my friend rents to a lot of high-turn over tenants (college or grad students).

@J Scott I am in the process of reviewing the plans with my partner and investors to determine if this contractor needs to be removed from the job. I also need to make sure I've got another lined up once this one is off the job (if this one is indeed off the job).