All Forum Posts by: Onan Dumas

Don't waste your your time... Aside from from control issues, you almost never get half duplexes at anywhere near a worthwhile price...

Yes you are underutilizing the equity you have in your rentals. You said you have 5 paid off rentals, goodness man...you have some great tools under your belt that you have no idea are there! HELOC'S or cash out refi's are your best bet right now...Who cares if you cash flow a bit less in each one...the idea is to take that money and put it in as a down payment to another below market value property that will cash flow and more than make up the difference in what you will be losing by refinancing...if you have at least 100k in equity that is 5 homes that you can put a 20k down payment on and aim for a 200-400 cash flow on each after debt service and such...that would be an extra 1k to 2k per month!

In essence you are borrowing a loan and letting your residents pay that loan off again for you...if you find the right properties, you can't lose!

Best of luck to you

Welcome to BP Lance! It's great you have you here, and you'll find a lot of great information on this website for whatever real estate help you need! You will also find a lot of great people to network with so welcome! (BTW not all the teams are horrible, you guys got lucky in getting Peyton Manning to your Broncos...this is coming from a jealous Colts fan!)

Welcome to BP Jonathan and welcome to the winning side!

Onan

@Dev Why Ah you'll be just fine man...analysis paralysis can get the best of us but definitely keep asking questions as they come up. BiggerPockets has a rental calculator that can help you analyze deals but I believe that you may have to be a Pro member to use it (shameless plug?)...

And @J. Martin It all depends on who your mortgage lender is. If you go with traditional lenders then no you won't find any that are 5 to 10% down on multi's...My lender is a portfolio lender that I have a good relationship with. They'll even finance more than 10 properties for me (once I get there and they don't change their rules!) Ask around, I don't know anything about California other than I'd never live there lol so I couldn't help you when it comes to lenders there...

PMI in people like me terms: mortgage insurance...It is there to protect the lender (i.e. a bank) in case you default. For example...my first primary residence was an FHA loan that I put 3.5% down. My mortgage payment went up 130 dollars because of the PMI. So rather than X mortgage payment I calculated at first, it was X+PMI...

Can you get cash flow on a multi with PMI? Sure, you can cash flow on anything if it is purchased right. You make your money when you buy the property...so if the numbers aren't adding up, then it is not a good investment and you need to move on. 2 things that can help though if you are diligent enough are debt paydown and rental rates that usually go up (this is depending on your city...here in Dallas my areas appreciate 6% annually on my rental rates)...if you reinvest your cashflow into paying down the property, not only will your loan and payment go down over time, but your equity will build up allowing you to cash flow even more...

I agree with @Mike Gibson about the site being information overload. You need to decide what you want your website to be, a sophisticated website with well detailed information and nice design, or a simple website that is really just there for information gather from buyers and sellers. Your website is a mix between the two and does not know whether it wants to be on or the other. What some people forget on for their websites as wholesalers is that a website can be like a yellow letter. Clear, concise, and quick to the point. If you place too much information, you lose the seller or buyer after a few lines of text. My advice is to make it short and sweet with no more than 10 to 15 lines of text. Minimize the pictures and video...Your website is there to get them to talk to YOU, the real asset of your business. YOU are there to get the lead closed, not the website.

Best of luck to ya!

Right here! Who needs to look for a mentor when you have [@Brandon Turner insert membership total here] people to help answer any questions you have!

Definitely man...we've got a boom going on in a few cities surrounding the DFW area...Jon named many in the southeast and east areas out of DFW but there are many in the north as well...I'm seeing growth in the Anna's, Little Elm's, Van Alstyne areas north of DFW...This is one of the biggest cities for job growth...it's a great place to be! But at the same time you can find many great deals within the DFW...you just have to become a great gold miner..best of luck to ya

Hi Cory,

Greetings and welcome to BP! I'm glad to hear that you are taking the first step in Real Estate and asking questions...I'm not expert on land, and I know there are some land geniuses that are active members here whom hopefully will comment here, but there are many possibilities that you can do with the land and homes you have on the land if everything is owned free and clear. The first things that come to my mind is that you may be able to section out and sell portions of the land, rent the homes on the land, sell it all as one etc etc. This all depends on what your family is willing to do to make the change, which I know can be scary from changing to something you are unsure of, but we are here to help!

As far as something short term you can look at would be the homes already on the land. I don't know the relationship you have with those families that are living in those homes rent free, but that is definitely something you want to take advantage of, especially seeing as you own them free and clear. Figure that out first and let us know what you find out!

Onan