All Forum Posts by: Larry Turowski

Sounds like marketing hype.  I highly doubt they are passing savings onto investors.  Real estate is always sold to the best offer, which 95% of the time is the highest offer.  The trick is to be in situations where there are limited offers.

This is different. Oregon this year passed state-wide rent control and now New York has followed suit. I can definitely imagine rent control in a place like Rochester depressing prices.  It has already caused me to start wondering if there are better places to invest. But it is all speculation. I guess we’ll see. 

@Patrick Menefee Comparing unrealized gains ($50K in equity) to realized gains ($25.5K in your pocket after taxes) is not apples to apples.  You can argue that that $50K can work for you but so can that $25.5K.

I flip and buy and hold.  I'll put aside aside that flipping is more of a job than being a passive investor and comment on the financials.  Hands down you'll do better flipping IF you have a reliable deal flow (that will put your money back to work).  But flipping is harder to scale.  At some point you'll have more financial resources than you can put to work on flips.  At this point you'll either have to do bigger (and likely longer) flips, or get better at sourcing deals.  Otherwise, it makes sense to grow the passive side of your investing portfolio.

Right now you've got the luxury of refinancing out, getting 100% of your money back and being in a position to do the exact same thing.  But what if after doing six of these as flips and not cash-out refis, with $25K profit each, you had another $150K and could do two flips at once?  (Yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't have to be your money to begin with but you get the idea.  It's nice to have cash, let me tell you.)

As my cash position gets "bloated" I look to pick up more rentals, but I love keeping my flipping business going.

 It is now a 14 day notice. 

@Andrew Perkins Unless this is a high end neighborhood and you would look careless by not having it in there, I would highly advise against it for a couple of reasons.  First, once you provide it you will have to fix it if it breaks.  And it is just another thing to break.  For instance, I prefer shower rods that are held up by spring pressure rather than being screwed to the wall.  If is just something that will break over time.  I also don't like on-the-wall toilet paper holders.  They will break.  Search this site about making your property "rent proof."

Second, if it does break it could lead to a lot of water damage.  It has happened to me on a flip.

@David de Luna Yes, it is common.  Experienced investors will either themselves be experienced enough to know what to look for or have someone who is go through with them for the viewing.  Also, if they do enough volume, they just accept that they will occasionally get burned.  

It is a probability thing.  The more deals you do the more you average your risk.  If you do just one and you can't afford for things to go wrong then you better find a way to get someone experienced in there, too.  Keep in mind that even inspection engineers miss or can't see things.  

Right off the bat you should expect that there is going to be some $5K expense that you were not anticipating.  Not just something worse than you expected, there will be that too.  And then there may be a $25K expense, but it is much less likely.  The latter won't happen that often, but like I said, if you can't absorb that or this is going to be your one and only deal, I would make sure you get someone experienced in there.

@Mark Ostertag I attended an atty briefing.  I'm all for tenant being treated well and fairly.  I support that.  But I think this does little to encourage tenants being treated well and a lot to dampen the investment environment in NY.

There are basically two parts to the legislation.  One part is rent control and for now that only applies to apartment complexes with more than six units.  Rochester will opt-in to the rent control and this will cause investors to be less willing to make capital improvements, and new investors to buy properties that need capital improvements.  I could be wrong.  Honestly, most tenants are good and want to pay their rent.  But I can't see this working out to apartment complexes improving.  It could lead to an overall deterioration of complexes and the city.

The other parts is a tenants rights part.  There are some real problems for landlords here.  Much slower eviction process, ways for the tenant to game the system and drag things on, inability to deny an applicant due to past evictions.  To me, it just dampens the interest in investing some.  Obviously you are not going to be evicting every tenant, but you'll have to consider that overall, the costs to be in this business are going up.  I can't help but to think that this will in turn have a dampening effect on prices.

@Kathleen McCabe If you buy wisely then timing shouldn't matter.

I'm an experienced investor and I'm a little nervous too--less about a real estate "crash" than about a recession and a downturn.  I've said this before but google "the wisdom of the crowd."  There has been an increasing amount of chatter about a recession coming in 2020 or 2021.  If there were downvotes I'm sure I'd get downvoted for this.  I wasn't worried about it in the last few years but I am worried about it now.

But I'm still buying.  Just because the probability of a recession might be higher now that doesn't mean it will happen.  SO I'm not going to just sit on my hands waiting.  The key is you want to be recession proof.  The rentals that I buy will cash flow nicely regardless of a recession and I'll buy them at a price that would allow me to sell them below current market rates and still not lose money.  The flips that I buy will not take a year to complete.  I'll be in and out of them in a few months.

There will always be deals regardless of the economic environment.

There are lots of posts and blogs on here about wholesaling--and there are books you could read, too.  It doesn't make sense for me to write you a book.  But if you have a specific question about it I could help.

@Stephanie Pieri No offense but this isn't a fair question.  BP members are here to "help," but you have to show you are trying.  What have you done to educate yourself?  What books have you read?  What local investors have you talked with?  What blogs or posts have you read?

This is like my little daughter asking me to carry her because she's too tired to walk.