All Forum Posts by: Osazee Edebiri

Hey Everyone,

I hope you enjoy the story and find it useful in your journey.

This past week I was a guest on the Million Podcast with Todd Capital. I shared a little bit about myself and my journey in real estate investing since 2014. It is was an interesting story because in 2014 I was just a 24 year old janitor living in a 2 bedroom house with 6 people. There was also other things that made life difficult during that time. I had no credit, I totaled my car, still in college and with a baby girl on the way. Wow, talk about tough times! While just looking for a place to live in and to cut living expenses, in mid 2014 I purchased my home in Pontiac, MI. Which is just a city 35 minutes from Detroit. During that time Pontiac was very distressed but it had all the right things in place to bring in big name companies that are here today which is why I saw it as a great place to call home long term.

After moving in my first property in 2014 and getting my second property in 2015 for just $2,500.00 (a condemned property) I gained the idea that I could potentially make money from real estate. In 2015 home values in my area were still distressed. It was still known to by a home for less than 10K. In 2015 I tried to do the Dave Ramsey trick and live on little and avoid debt by rehabbing my second home with little resources. I did most of the work myself and it cost me roughly 20K in repairs and 2 years of time. By 2017 I was in a better job, and I refinanced my first home and used the cash to be the winning bid for my 3rd home on a website called Auction.com, which cost 35K. On Auction.com at the time I over paid for the property. I paid over 10k above the reserve amount because I did not know the bank has the right to bid against bidders. In 2017 the market was doing a lot better but what I learned was that the market changed in price by 5X from 2015 to 2017. For example, those same 10K homes would have been listed on the market for 50K each. By 2018 I had finally figured out how to perform the BRRRR strategy the proper way. So, I refinanced my 3rd home and was able to pocket around 60K to obtain a condo that I bought in late 2018 for 52K. The condo was a rental just like the other properties. However after being a landlord in a HOA I learned that its not for everyone. So I refinanced the condo into a HELOC and used the money to buy another single family home in 2019 of October. Keep in mind, the moment I purchased the 5th property Amazon had announced that they were officially coming to the area. The single-family home that I bought was a house very close to Amazon for 42K. The home values and perceptive of the real estate changed very quickly during that period.

By 2020 I was already convinced that the property values are too high and I was not willing to pay 100K+ for a investment property. So I tried going to Flint and picking up affordable real estate there. Before my search in 2021 in Flint I did manage to sell my condo and refinance my 1st and 5th properties. I also acquired a 30K credit card as well. Between the 2 refinances, the credit card, and condo sell I accumulated about 180K. So at the very beginning in January of 2021 I purchased my first Flint rental at a price point of 35K which was already fully remodeled and turn key. After having an open house and understanding how Flint demand is for rentals. I decided to buy 3 more properties all at the same time. 1 property was from MLS and 2 more were from the Genesee County Landbank Auction. Today, 1 of the 3 is rehabbed and rented. The other 2 are vacant.

Going into 2022 I did not think I would run into another good deal in the Pontiac area. However, I did find a deal on the MLS that I could not pass up, which is now my 10th property. This single-family property cost about 54K. It was heck of a deal with comps between 125K and 170K. The owner was looking to quickly get rid of this property because the tenant was causing problems and the main owner had passed away.

This is a just brief breakdown of my story on how I built my million dollar portfolio from a zero start over 8 years. I also answered many questions in detail on the Millionaire Podcast show.

Below is a snapshot of the home I won in the Genesee county Landbank Auction for 20K its property Property Number 8.

Here is a snapshot of my 2,500 dollar house in Pontiac. The lot in between both houses is also mine. I purchased the lot for 255 bucks in a 3 day auction.

Just providing an update here to everyone. Woof, what a nightmare.

I've reached out to the lawyers referred here as well as a few others. Unfortunately, due to the eviction moratorium, nobody will even take me on as a client at this time since there's nothing they can do. Many of these offices have a backlog of hundreds, if not thousands of potential clients like me, waiting to get some kind of legal action for unpaid tenant rent. Unfortunately, the only course of action I can take is to write my city board of supervisors, as they're the ones who will not lift the moratorium. Not really something I'm optimistic about...

One of the lawyers also said that if I do offer cash for keys, they recommend going through the "proper channels": I'd need to file documents with the city first to discuss the potential buyout, file with the rent board and keep them in the loop, provide specific language in the documents, allow the rent board and tenant time to rethink or cancel, etc. They warned that if I don't follow the correct procedure, there's a risk of possibly getting sued. If I go that route, the cost of buyout is more like $11k (not the $2-4k my pm told me), on top of the outstanding $6k+ the tenant already owes.

At this point, I'm basically out of options. If the tenant squats and decides to continue not paying rent, all I can do is ask them nicely and wait out the eviction moratorium. Might be obvious, but this definitely discourages me from ever buying in Oakland or California again... Would love to hear how others have rebounded from their past failures though!

Hi, all. We are looking into an STR investment but don't want to lose our First Time Home Buyer status for lower down payments in the future once we're ready to buy our own home. A family member suggested opening an LLC and purchasing the home with the entity in order to keep our own names off of the mortgage. We are in California in the Bay Area. Any thoughts on this or other ways to be smart with our tactics? Thanks in advance!

I'm looking to buy my first investment property this year as well. One thing I've been looking at is buying a single family house where I can split the home into 2 units and permit one as an ADU. This would be significantly less expensive than buying a SF and then adding an ADU. I've found a few good opportunities <$1m. Buying a multi-family in that price range is going to be difficult and will also need work.

As far as locations, I’m focused on areas with decent/good school districts where I can buy something a little less expensive. I’ve been looking at Concord since I’m in Walnut Creek - it’s close so I can easily property manage, but the housing prices are less and I expect there to be appreciation in the future as the area continues to gentrify. I stopped looking at areas like Richmond or parts of Oakland where the schools are really bad, there’s lots of public housing, crime, etc. I’ve been in the Bay Area my whole life and while you would think with the housing prices here some of these areas would have to eventually gentrify, there are certain factors keeping them from doing it that aren’t going to change without significant government intervention.

I’m also looking at going up to Sacramento but that’s outside the Bay and you specifically said Bay Area. For me, anything up to 1-1.5 hours away is being considered so I can manage the renovations and property management myself.

Good question @Justin Haughton,

I’ve got a buddy of mine that utilized a 203b and he’s still rehabbing it, it’s taken almost two years. It’s a great way to finance the rehab costs, it’s an amazing idea in theory. The hard part is that it’s very slow: it takes a long time for approval from licensed contractor’s bids to get money dispersed, and a lot of contractors will refuse these jobs. If you’ve got skills and connections, you can make it work. But it’s very SLOW. So you may find yourself waiting a long time to refinance. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It just depends on your goals and your situation. In all honesty, I haven’t heard of a 203b being used on multifamily, I recommend @Grant Schroeder on this one, he’s an expert at lending for house hacks.

 City of Oakland...county of Alameda not landlord friendly,rent control...when you want to sale there is usually a hefty cash for keys price,$25k-$50k easy.  Also there is no real cash flow

Hi everyone. My name is Vinay and I’m an aspiring real estate investor. Looking forward to learning from and contributing to the BiggerPockets community!

Hello everyone,

Recently rented out a San Jose SFH to a high maintenance tenant. Need some advice as to how to deal with this tenant, enforce fees for service requests, etc? Mind that this tenant has only moved in for 10 days and has sent us numerous emails, texts, about problems in the property.

0) Day 3: Unit was professionally cleaned by a cleaning crew 2 weeks prior to move in. Tenant complains about the "gross" cleaning supplies left behind by the cleaners (windex, a scrub) and that there is dust on the cleaning supplies. PM informs tenant that the cleaning supplies are left as a courtesy for the tenant to use in case he/she wants to clean the house.

1) Day 3: Tenant complains about minor outdoor dripping at the base of drip system unit. Worried she might be overcharged for water. PM informs tenant that we will keep an eye out. Anybody solutions to a slightly leaky, new drip system out there? 

2) Day 4: Half of the home's electric sockets don't work, likely because tenant tripped circuits. PM informed tenant that tenant might have tripped electric circuits. Gave instructions how to access and reset the electric box (just turn off and on the switches). Tenant said that instructions were confusing. Refuses to read instructions and take a photo of the box and cooperate. Tells us that the electric issue is the "least of her concerns" because she is now putting down her support dog. Next day she changes her mind and continues with this request. Requests electrician. PM told tenant that we will send someone there but might not be immediate as it's Christmas.

3) Day 5: Tenant informs owner that her support dog has passed away and would like to remove "necessary stuff" in her lease relating to her dog. We don't believe there is anything that needs to be done with her lease, so we reply "Noted, sorry about your loss"

4) Day 6: dishwasher leaks so much soap duds in the kitchen that it looks like it snowed there. PM asks tenant if he/she used the correct type of dishwashing detergent.

Anyway, we believe this pattern of constant / daily requests will continue. What would all you investors do in this situation? We used the standard BP 2021 California lease agreement.