All Forum Posts by: Martin Lindsay

I've been the GC on my own flip before and it certainly saved me plenty of time and money. Given I didn't need any permits pulled otherwise I would have needed a licensed GC for that part. Otherwise you're essentially playing the role of project manager, and imo it's good to do that a few times so you get an understand of how the process of a rehab works and once you scale and grow to the point that you can have GC manage your rehabs, you'll know where your expectations and standards lie. 

Great post @Matt Jones ! You make a lot of great points that many of us need to be reminded of. Have made any significant changes to how you invest now due to the pandemic? Personally I have shifted away from picking up flips and have focused more on buying value-add rentals right now. My 2020 goal was to buy 4 rentals and 6 flips, and although to your point about maintaining your long term goals I'm not pursuing flips now, I still plan to pick them up later in the year (if all goes well) but right now I'm closing on 3 rentals. Has your decision making changed at all or are you playing it safe by waiting this out?

@Raad Qumsieh As @Odie Ayaga mentioned, several hard money lenders do offer long term products like 30 yr fixed, but right now the options are limited. I would suggest just shopping around and calling as many as needed to see what they offer. You may have to settle for a 5/1 or 10/1 ARM for now but you can always refinance again in the future.

It may be trickier in the current environment but going through a hard money lender or another asset-based lender will likely be your best choice. These types of lenders offer higher interest rates than the institutional banks, however they focus more on the performance of the property (cash flow, debt service coverage ratio, etc.) to approve your loan, rather than the borrower's income and credit.

@Eric Rosiello I believe it depends on the lender/ loan servicer. I've heard several options but mine wasn't quite as generous. They offered me a 60 day forbearance and at the end I'm supposed to make payments and a half to catch up, which defeats the purpose imo especially for those who are actually struggling financially. 

@Adam Tafel Curious who is your lender/loan servicer? 

@Evan McClure Welcome Evan!! Thats great news to hear sounds like you're on top of things already. I'm a local investor in Charlotte as well and have a good network of other like-minded individuals worth connecting with. @Patrick Menefee hosts a local meetup and I'm sure would be glad to give you more info. And of course feel free to reach out!

@Corby Goade made an excellent point that I'd like to reiterate. 

Once you jump in full time and are immersed in the process of finding deals, executing on them and building a business around it you will figure out how to stabilize your income as you generate it. 

I did the exact same thing last year. Left my full time job and am now a full time investor. By nature I'm not a systematic thinker, but I know I perform at my highest and enjoy having systems and structure. That being said, I've been able to begin systemizing my business after I started closing deals and actually had business and income to work with. 

Your concerns are valid and it's great to be somewhat conservative especially when jumping in, and due to that I think you'll figure it out just fine. I'd advise sitting down and really ironing out what are your bottom dollar needs to simply live as frugal as necessary, should you have to rely on the cash flow at some point. 

Best of luck!

Welcome to the REI world Stephen! As mentioned before, definitely start listening to the BP podcast episodes every chance you get in the car, and pick up a couple books written by some of the fine people here at BiggerPockets. This will help familiarize you with some of the concepts used in today's market, along with the terminology and strategies.

3 recommendations from 3 great authors:

The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and low) Money Down - Brandon Turner

Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat - David Greene

Build a Rental Property Empire - Mark Ferguson

Two additional tips:

- Drive around and get to know the city. Talk to friends about new things happening to learn what pockets of Charlotte are growing and what aren't. You can do all the market research you want, but theres nothing quite like seeing the market with your own eyes.

- Interact with other BP members and ask them about their deals. Everyone here is happy to share and the more you understand how successful deals were successful, the better you'll do on yours. I recently posted a BRRR deal that I completed with no money out of pocket if you want to look it up in the forums ;)

Good luck!

@Patrick Menefee Thank you!! To have it expedited I think I paid $500 or so. Some appraisers were a little more or less, but this one got it done the next day

@Chris Rosenberg Thank you Chris! I ended up going with Civic FS which is a hard money lender. They will lend on them however for a long term loan the property has to be 5 years old or newer. Unfortunately I learned this during the process so I opted for a 2 year loan with option for a 1 year extension. 

Not the most ideal, but as you know, 2-3 years can be an eternity in this business so it buys me time to explore other exit strategies. Hope that helps!