All Forum Posts by: Nick S.

@Anthony Colonnetta @Agustin C.

I still have not gotten anything under contract. So in the meantime, I've been continuing to learn more about the process by reading, listening to the podcast on my commute, and looking at properties. I've also been trying to familiarize myself with more neighborhoods to see where I want to focus on and where I want to avoid 

@Sam Craven Thanks for your take on each of the different sources of deals. 

The way I picture it is all of the deals that investors are buying to flip or rehab and rent fit on a pie chart, and the different slices of the pie grow and shrink over time based on current market conditions. And of course the overall diameter of the pie grows and shrinks over time too with the total volume. Some years the MLS slice is big, some years it's small, etc. In addition to the ones I listed, there is a miscellaneous slice too, from word of mouth deals, craigslist deals, and various others.

I think my best bet is to just pick one or two focus areas and ignore the rest for now. I don't think I'll be getting into direct mail right now, so that's an easy one to put aside. Focusing on the biggest slice of the pie based on current local market conditions could make the most sense but probably any of the methods would work. 

(By the way, I've listened to your two podcasts and enjoyed them both!)

As 2017 kicks off, I'm newly motivated to pull the trigger on my first of hopefully many rental property deals.

I'm mostly looking at moderately distressed 3/2 SFRs in the Houston suburbs for buy and hold rentals. I'd like to target something in the 1.25%+ rent to "all in cost" (purchase + rehab) range.

Where are other investors currently finding deals in the 1%+ range?

• MLS - seems like there are some, but they move quickly
• HUDhomestore.com - doesn't seem like there's much inventory and the ones listed don't seem like great deals
• Auction.com - I've just started looking at this, could be a possibility
• Wholesalers - I've only talked to one of the "full service" wholesale brokers so far, haven't started networking to individual wholesalers yet. The deals I was seeing weren't all that enticing.
• Direct marketing - could be the best option, but I haven't taken the plunge into this as of yet

Any suggestions or opinions on where I should be focusing my efforts?

The idea has crossed my mind. I've seen some apartment complexes market to students. What kind of housing were you thinking of? Small or large multi-family? Having multiple students live in a SFR? Do you know if there are deed restrictions (or similar) in that area limiting the number of unrelated people who can live at one address?

JJ GONZALEZ II Syndication is an area that interests me but I haven't looked into it much yet. How big are the projects that you are invested in and about how many partners are involved in each one?

@John Chapman what do you mean by "make at least $1k/month"? Is that the minimum gross rent you'll consider?

Does the neighborhood the house is in have any association fee? A lot of the neighborhoods here have a small yearly fee that can eat into cash flow a bit. Might also be worth considering property management as a cost, if for some reason you need to have it managed in the future. You would want to make sure you still have good cash flow if you had to pay a property manager.

$5,000 per month? Wow! What kind of property is that?

Thanks for sharing these details! This is along the lines of what I'm interested in doing. 

Would you mind expanding on how you calculate your cash flow number? What do you assume for vacancy? Do you pay for property management? Do you have a separate allowance for feeding a capex account? 

I've found that I'd need a bigger spread between the purchase price + rehab and rent in order to make at least that much cash flow.

@Michael Lee Thanks for the advice! I don't currently have any properties, so unfortunately don't have any value to add. It does seem like finding a good (and first) deal in today's market is going to be tough, but I'd still like to try. Avoiding below average in a neighborhood just for the sake of doing a deal is great advice. I will keep that in mind for sure as I continue to see what's out there.