All Forum Posts by: Matthew Morrow

@Derrek J Hooyman, youll find more. Garages are fantastic options that in our market hold a descent value for renters. Especially in cities. However we dont se any direct correlation between rents with or without garage space.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in Whitehall.

Purchase price: $250,000
Cash invested: $35,000

Value Add purchase w/ partner. Severely Under performing duplex for sale with all owner paid heat / single boiler. Out of state owner wanted to cash out. We purchased this on-market. Immediate addition of a 2nd gas meter / boiler to remove that expense, and change lease terms / sign new tenant at market rent. Instant 40K equity and turned a -$650 / mo net cash flow at purchase into a +$480 in 30 days with <12 days vacancy.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Local and fit criteria post renovation

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

On market- MLS
Negotiated with agent directly on terms knowing value add potential

How did you finance this deal?

Commercial / Conventional

How did you add value to the deal?

Adding 2nd Gas service & boiler to bill tenants for units directly. Lease term adjustments and new tenants at market rent. Also- renting garage space individually commanded more gross rent.

What was the outcome?

Still Holding & cash flowing- 0% vacancy

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Municipality Address was wrong in USPS , utilities, and tenant leases for 20+ years prior. Changing that to match the deed and county 911 records was a simple letter from the town- but time consuming.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Self represented as an agent.

 The contact feature on zillow is nice, and i wonder how accurate it is. Applications is 100% right, as we use them to source rentals. 

 That's a great question. You can interpolate a little if trying to price rentals. 

For ours- if there was no solid data (in some markets this is common) - We started calling property management / leasing companies and comparing to similar units. And hate to say it, but Facebook / Craigslist and even the Newspaper classifieds could be useful.

Off market, direct to seller marketing. Use public records to filter property types and reach out to them via Skiptracing phone numbers or hard mail. Doorknocking is also highly effective but can take a lot of time.  
programs like Propstream and deal machine make this process extremely user-friendly, and if done correctly he will easily make your money back exponentially. 

Similar reasons to appraisers only using MLS data. This information is essentially peer reviewed and verified to remove any bad info. Zestimates can be wildly off and you don't want to base your entire business model on some computer algorithm that may have a metric wrong.

The Scripts Nathan references are fantastic. Many brokerages customize versions of these, but you’ll want to have something that you stick to and get comfortable with.  

And the Getting to “yes, no, and all in between” are just placeholders for having a true conversation And learning the business.  

This is a great problem to have, but leads are essentially worthless unless you turn them into something productive. I think you should start with getting a strong network and other investors in your area so that when these deals come around you can either form them out, take them yourself, or partner. Having a way to handle the direction of your leads could prove to be a very valuable skill when you become the person to connect others. 

BiggerPockets in itself is a wonderful resource to find people who might be able to help you out with these deals. Also try  Facebook groups, local meet ups and many more.