All Forum Posts by: Mitchell Jaworski

@Leviticus R. when renting out one side and living in the other the goal is to be able to live for free, i.e, have the one side cover your expenses of the property, being that the side you live in would be the cash flow if it were rented out.  Atleast that is the goal I always had and understood.

Just glancing at your data in the post seems like you are close to that if the rehab will only cost you 12k and you get the property for under 100k then the upped rent on the 3 bed (1,150) should be you in a decent spot to break even.

I would love to do a house hack like that but the numbers in south florida aren't even close to possible.  I've been investing out of my local market.

@Hugo Jimenez welcome to the real estate investing adventure.  I can say this, if you are looking in our local area be sure to perform due diligence on your numbers, i.e, run the numbers through a property calculator.  If you need one I can send you mine just let me know. 

It is hard to find cash flowing muli-family properties around here right now. 

I'm  a local investor and also have my license here in FL so let me know if I can assist.

@Bryan T. it literally comes down to if an area is in a flood zone or not.  And it doesn't need to be close to the ocean to be in a flood zone.  I have a property more inline than some others and it ended up being the one in a floodzone.

I believe the floodzone maps are on the FEMA website, they are the ones that designate it. There is also different grades of flood zone that impact ins cost.

It's interesting how many out of staters are still buying up FL.  I've started buying outside of FL as cash flowing opportunities are getting tougher and tougher to find here, then again my area is the hottest.  

Better opps upstate and to the west,

Local I self-manage, out of state I use prop mgr or partner with someone who can mgr.   Both have their merits.  I will be up in Jacksonville in August as I was asked to speak at the Jax REIF meeting.  Have wanted to come up to Jax for some time @Matt MacDonald and check it out.

@Leland Bishop sounds good to me.  Also down to meet other investors.  I have a couple meetups I do over here in Palm Beach County.  Great networking, have made alot of good contacts.

@Leland Bishop I'm in Southeast FL (and invest in other states) but will be going to look at things in Charlotte County in September with a friend that is interested in the area.

@Joseph Sanchez welcome to South Florida investing, guess it has seeped up to Central Florida now as well. Kidding aside though, Florida market is tough as price appreciation has all but wiped out cash flow opportunities. Finding something on the MLS is very very rare in my area of Florida.

Though I still look in FL (mainly off market stuff), I shifted my focus to out of state (which I wrote a blog post about on my site) as I saw the writing on the wall.  Currently investing in more rural MA.

As for FL, off market deals are the only thing I see working.  These give you an opportunity for value add.  I have investor associates that are working probate and pre-auction foreclosure properties to find deals.  It is alot of work but pays off when a deal is found.

Funny thing is I considered looking up in the Kissimmee and Lakeland area on MLS being that it doesn't work down here anymore. I ran some numbers, they were tight but seemed possibly doable.

@James Kirby if they won't give up lease info that is a but shadey.  Yes, leases convey and you will not be able to get tenants out until they expire.  Like Wayne said, they may be month to month which would be best case for you as you can give them 30 day notice once you close.

Love the perspective from someone that has been in the game for such time.  I'm kind of in the middle here age-wise and see alot of what you talk about with the younger generations.

The less homeowner demand I felt has helped rental demand, but this could have an expiration date given the re-population rate you discuss.  Based on those stats we may not need much new home building going on.  The irony is new homes aren't even being built, it seems to many be condos and apartment buildings which creates many more units than homes.  Atleast in my area that is all they are building.

All of it is food for thought and there is nothing wrong with analyzing the risk in an investment.  That should be done with any asset class.

I've continued to invest and probably still will, but an rather picky and also invest in other non-traditional assets classes.

I second much of what everyone else said here.  Me personally, I'd use that 20K as a downpayment on a property instead.  Getting education is good, but I believe in a price limit on that.  I actually have mentored people for 1/100th of that cost.  As the saying goes "experience is the best teacher."  Need to be out there doing deals.