All Forum Posts by: Noah Chappell

@Michael Lilburn to chime in once more, I do think the Twin Cities is a great market for a balance btw cash flow & appreciation, if your outlook is long term. Employment is incredibly diverse with multiple Fortune 500 companies, and it's got one of the nation's lowest vacancy rates, in addition to a recognized shortage of affordable housing & strong city incentives for section 8 rentals. I'd prefer to invest here knowing the strong long term outlook of the market as opposed to a smaller town depending upon 1 employer. Another bonus for MN I was reflecting on recent, no natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornadoes, earth quakes, floods, etc, & Hennepin County has had extremely stable prices for a regionally expensive market as compared to the costal markets, Denver, etc. 

@Ashley Keeler taking on multiple BRRRR projects long distance at once right from the beginning is definitely ambitious.. careful or you might find yourself in a world of pain that takes 1-2 years to emerge from. Don't forget BRRRR investing is really expert level & requires a great team, deep local knowledge, experience, etc.

If I were you I'd probably prove the concept first on a 1/2 or 2/3 SF in for ex Cleveland acquired for ~70k with ARV ~130k (totally made up numbers) using hard money w/ DP coming from your money/private money/cash advance from business LOC, etc. I think it's kinda hard to go too wrong with something like that even if you halfway know what you're doing, & even if you're down 20k it will be well worth the lessons learned & won't deplete you financially.

@Daniel Anshus the guy to talk to is Josh Anderson, just call ICU & ask for him in the business dpt 

@Michael Lilburn welcome! I bought my first duplex in St Paul sight unseen & without having visited or having much knowledge of the area, & although I wouldn't necessary advocate that it's worked well so far. What I did is look up prominent business corridors & routes of public transportation, then identified prominent employers such as hospitals, etc, then lastly brought out the good ol' trulia crime map. I felt comfortable making offers on properties properties that were strong by all these indicators, which met my ROI requirements. If you have more time, probably best to do the aforementioned, but also throughly walk the neighborhood to get a feel for the intangibles. If everything checks out, mostly likely you can feel confident proceeding.

@Andrew Carlson amazing story, very inspiring, thanks for sharing! Keep us up to date on how things go with the on site manager, interesting idea. You might consider re financing with Ideal Credit Union at some point, after calling about 20 credit unions around I got a portfolio loan with 15 year balloon, 25 year am at 4.5%, just an idea.. Anyways congrats! 

@Mike Smith you might consider a home equity line of credit to take out your equity now that rates are historically low, and move this equity into some higher ROI properties. You could also sell and 1031 exchange. 2-4 unit small multi families are considered a sweet spot given they can be acquired with residential loans & are desirable to both investors & small time landlords looking to house hack. You mention you don't make much money in cash flow, which implies maybe you weren't super clear on your numbers when purchasing - the saying 'you make your money when you buy' holds true. This time you might look for some off market deals & set a COC requirement, say >15% for example. In my current market I haven't seen anything on the MLS in months that would make sense. In real estate you want to take advantage of the 5 ways of making money (cash flow, loan pay down, tax benefits, appreciation, inflation), sounds like you could strengthen the first by shifting your equity & in doing so getting a better return on equity.

Take a look at Brandon's vid for ideas on finding deals: 

Good luck! 

@Matt Gigli congrats! You have a substantial amount to invest and could do some damage in one of the stable midwest markets like Cleveland, etc. I would be cautious though with jumping into a distressed property to use the BRRRR strategy from a distance as your entry into RE investing.. this is really for advanced users & without a very thorough knowledge of neighborhoods, rehab costs, & a team you know you can trust you stand a very high chance of coming out in the red.

One strategy would be to start on a good solid blue collar rental thats already set to go apart from maybe a paint job. This would allow you to get your head around the process, vet out a good realtor & PM, & maybe a good handyman/GC with very little risk, then advance to BRRRR when you have a team in place & some experience.

If you've got a high risk tolerance admittedly the fastest way to learn probably is to jump right into a BRRRR with the understanding that you're likely to loose some money, and just chalk this up to educational expenses. In this case I'd aim for more of a smaller deal, like say a blue collar 50k single fam.

Either way you just need to jump in & you'll learn eventually. Good luck! 

@Mario Russo my feeling is the inventory is so scarce right now that you can't really be selective about where to buy, rather what areas to avoid. If you have the right team in place you'll likely be successful in any area. I'd take out trulia crime map, avoid the really hot areas, and everywhere else is fair game. Then you could check the MLS sites, drive for dollars, network, or even look up the city's vacant building registration and start reaching out to owners and offering low offers on places that have gone vacant in last few years.

@Mario Russo the coveted 4 plex can be difficult to come by in this area. There are some run down 4 plexes floating around the listings that I've seen, even one that was sub 300K I believe. You might want to use this as a trial by fire opportunity to get your feet wet and rehab a distressed asset that you could then hold for all time.

@Mahad Omar welcome man! I'd second everything @Evan Kraljic said, spot on. At this point you seem to have great foundation of knowledge. I'd say just jump in.. I've found that investing is a lot different than you think I'll be, there are days when the grind is almost too much, but just push through and you'll find great reward on the other side! I'm sure we'll connect at a meet up as well. Best of luck!