All Forum Posts by: Orion Walker

I live 2 hours north of SF, 2 hours west of Sac, near a small town of about 35k. I live on 50 beautiful acres in a strawbale house that my wife and I built together. It's a gear place to raise our kids who are now 3 and 6. My parents bought this property in the seventies for $25,000. Yes, we live in the sticks, and yes I have to drive an hour to get my iPhone fixed, but old growth redwoods are just down the road, the rugged coastline an hour away, the produce is fresh, the wine is good, the weather is great (okay it gets a bit hot and dry in the summer) and if I feel the need for some urban time, a day trip or weekend trip are easy down to the Bay Area is easy. On the RE side, you can buy stick frame fixers for under 1

Hey @Phillip Gonzales, I feel your pain. As a fairly new investor I get overwhelmed too. I want to move forward in five directions at once sometimes. As a family guy who wants to get more into investing I'm familiar with your status. I would maximize the fact that you have a steady W-2 job. An FHA loan with 3-5% down on a 2-4 unit place would seem like a great place to start to me. I bought a triplex with an FHA loan a couple years ago and now it is producing cash which I am socking away for our next down payment. I too am working on getting my license. I feel it will expand my options. I would also suggest getting savvy on finding and recognizing great deals. I'm working on that myself right now. I figure if I start digging up some great deals, that will open a lot of doors/opportunities. And of course, doing what you are doing right now, being active on BP (adding that picture on your profile would be a good little next step too).

Good luck, stay positive.

Welcome aboard @Jacob Vincent. Yeah, when I landed on BP a few months ago I burned through all of the podcasts in about a month while working on a house remodel project. Good stuff. I've been taking the local approach, looking to find deals that work up here in the northern north bay (as I call it), but I'm eventually interested in trying out of state as well. Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm trying too hard to make things work around here when the numbers are so much easier out of state. But then I hear lots of stories about the challenges/risks out of state. So, I'll be interested to hear how your research goes and where you end up going. 

Cheers,

-Orion

Hi Diane,

I'm up the road about an hour in Ukiah. Welcome to the site. Lots of active bay area folks here. Be sure to set up keyword alerts. There's an interesting conversation going on right now on whether/how much the market is cooling in the North Bay and how that might effect people's strategy. You might want to jump in on that one. I'd be interested to hear from more folks on that. 

I too am looking to better understand wholesaling, creative financing, and other elements that will help me take things to the next level.

See you around,

-Orion

Hey @Stephen Barton , thanks for sharing. As someone who's planning to get started with some marketing in the near future I'm curios to know a bit more about what type of action/outreach/marketing you are doing. I'm sure I'm not alone in being a bit worried about the responses I'll get. Are you finding phone numbers and cold calling? I would imagine that would be the roughest. Are you getting negative responses from mailings? Knocking on doors?  If you don't mind sharing I'd love to hear a bit more. Thanks.

@Mike Martin Thanks again for the information about the Homestyle loan. We are now in escrow because of that loan option. Big Thanks!

Thanks for the great feedback @Curt Davis, @Brian Burke, and @Stephanie Dupuis.

 Let me clarify just a bit in that I like the agent I'm working with and have no interest in trying to cut her out of a commission. My question was more directed at the fact that the property is going to be listed with my agent, so she's representing both the seller and me. I don't have a problem with that. She can make a nice double commission. But I can't really see it leading to a particularly great deal for me, since she's on both sides. And in this case the seller is right there, available to talk to. I like Brian's idea of working in some questions and then maybe following up with a call/meeting where the agent helps but you also have the opportunity to talk/negotiate directly with the seller.

The other part of this that I thought I could learn from would be on how to approach a deal like this when I'm not currently in a position to do anything other than put together a loan offer. Obviously asking if the seller would consider carrying would be one way to go, but I'm also curious if I should shop the deal to people that could pay cash. Generally when I hear about people doing that they have the place under contract, and at a wholesale price. In this case I just have a lead on a place pre-market, that just seems like a pretty good deal, with seller that could be talked to. So I'm wondering if a more experienced person would have a way to get it under contract, then look for partners/private money, or how a pro would approach that part of it.

Thanks again for the comments/ideas/suggestions!

The other day my agent set me up to see a place that won't come on the market for a week or two. Two somewhat run down 2/1 houses in a nice neighborhood with 1% rule or better potential (which is pretty hard to come buy around here). They've connected with my agent to sell the place, have a decent price in mind, but sound like they might be open to negotiation. So I went and saw the places with my agent and the owner is there, working on fixing up various things. She lives couple hours away, she's driving hours to come paint and stuff herself. I walk around and check it out and think it could be a really good opportunity for the right price. I thought about trying to talk options with the owner, but felt awkward about that given that my agent was there.

So I'm wondering, what would a pro do in a situation like this? I'm not currently in a position to make a cash offer, but it seems like someone with experience might really be able to capitalize in that situation or if not right then, would have a good strategy to move on this property. I could shop it out to contacts, I could try to go back over and talk to the owner directly, see about getting an owner carry, an option to buy, I could work up the numbers and just put in an offer before they list...

Anyhow, struck me as the kind of situation that I could learn from. What would you do?

Hey @Mike Martin, If you'd be willing to check your contacts and let me know of someone who does the Homestyle renovation loan in California I would super appreciate it. That's probably my ticket on this property. 

Thanks!

@Jeff Trevarthen, Yeah, my agent and I discussed the owner finance idea and we might put that up the flag pole, but I get the feeling that if they are currently holding out for a cash offer they might not be interested in owner carry, or might want a lot down. But yeah, I agree I should try to find out of they would be open to that. One of those things where I wish I was working directly with the buyer because it seems harder to have that conversation when working through buyer and seller agents.

@Dawn Brenengen, thanks. Yeah, this guy has done pretty well by me, but I do think I need to start branching out and talking to a wider array of lenders to make sure I'm not missing out on different kinds of loans and deals. 

@Matt Lineberger, I'm honored to be the recipient of your first post here on BP!! Thanks for the reminder on that. I knew that about hard money, but had kind of forgotten that. You don't have to sell to pay off, you can refinance. Thanks for that important reminder. I do need to look into hard money more and establish some relationships. I'm getting tired of getting beat by cash buyers and/or having to pass on properties that I would want to go after. I could learn a thing or two from working with some hard money folks too. thanks for that helpful reminder. 

At the moment we resubmitted our offer with a letter that talks about how much we love the place and how confident we are that we can navigate escrow and close. Hoping they'll give us a chance.

Thanks again for all of the great pointers and feedback!