All Forum Posts by: Steve Moody

That's where I get discouraged. I know that retail isn't going to cut it, but I can never imagine buying something for less than 1/2 retail price. That's about what would need to happen in order to cash flow. For example a house that retails for $250k rents for about $1300 here. The P&I on a loan for a $250k home with 20% down = 1330. So using the 50% rent calc I'd need to pull in well over double the rent, or get the house for much less than 50% of retail value. In a market where home values are still going up (albeit only slightly) I don't see that happening.

Is it typical to get homes for less than 50% retail value?

I keep getting excited about REI, I read books and these forums and I'm ready to start, but then I start looking at properties on the market and start doing calcs and I get discouraged. I tell myself it can't be done here and I forget about it for a while. I always come back though. I need to just do something.

I've come to the conclusion that in my market SFR rentals is not an ioptions unless by some miracle I get a house for 25% market value or can charge 4x the rent as anyone else :D

I want to start looking into foreclosures. I have a lot of excuses as to why it's not working out though. :cry:

Thanks for the tip John. I noticed your location is London UK. I was born in Ascot and lived in Bracknell until I was 4, when we moved to California. I recently moved to Portland OR. I still have lots of family in England.

If you have any tips on areas to look in or anything else about the Portland OR area I'd love to hear them.

Just replying back to say that it can't be just me and the properties that I'm looking at. In the Portland area it just doesn't seem to work. I'm consistently seeing apts and plexes listed a "great investment" but when doing the calcs I'll need to put over 2/3 of the sale price down and even then I'll only be making about 1/3 of what I'd make off of my savings account.

Example: 300k down gets you about $400/ month assuming 50% of rent is calculated for expenses. A good savings account will make me about $400/month off of $100K, and I never have to deal with tenants. :lol:

What's frustrating is that I've talked to some people who are looking at buying right now, in Portland, with no money down and they say it's going to have positive cash flow. I need to get an example of what they're looking at because I just don't see it.

Anyone in the PDX area investing in rental property?

As the title says. I just moved up to the Portland area and am looking to get into REI.

Navigating the site in my county is kinda like navigating a hedge maze at night ... blindfolded, with your feet tied together :shock:

I've found that Zillow can provide pretty good results for past sale prices. I know it varies by location so YMMV

You can either have someone come and test it or DIY. There are a number of home test kits that you can send to a lab for testing. Do a Google search on mold testing kits. There are some that will send you a free kit, you just pay for the lab test and shipping ($25-30).

Ok, I must not be getting it, or I'm looking in the wrong areas. I've been looking at multi unit apt. complexes and just doing the simple math doesn't seem to makes sense. Here's one in particular that I've run some numbers on:

10 units, $585 per month per unit in rent
sale price $795k

According to the ad:
Scheduled Gross Income: $71,000 (my caculator must be broken 585 x 10 x 12 = 70,200)

Net Operating Income: $54,060

NOI seems a little inflated if you ask me (but you probably didn't :lol: )

If you put 10% down ($79.5k) your loan amount will be $715.5k

At 8% the payment will be $5250/month. That's a net loss of $745 per month.

It's not until I put down $182k do I get a whopping positive $7 per month. When I get to putting down $200k I'm making a bit more than if I'd put the money in a CD.

I read on here the advice of buy an apt. building with 10% down, is there anywhere that this makes sense?

Thanks for reading my rambling rant.
Steve

you can just go to http://www.hud.gov, select your state, and under the "quick links" section there will be a link to "HUD homes for sale" then you can search by ZIP of city.

soon, depending on the market of course, but I think we'll list the condo for sale in about a month.

The factors that give us the time frame are based on whether or not the home sells. The date set is just as good as any other date. If I don't set one and go with it it won't happen.

A big factor in all of this is also whether or not I can get a job after selling here. It's sort of an unknown, and the only part that concerns me. That's why I'm looking at investing the most effective and efficient way.

I did some more research and it looks lik ethe condo is worth around $490k, so its a bit less than my first estimate, but still a good bit leftover in the end.