All Forum Posts by: Priscilla Swantner

@Valeria R. I started flipping to get the capital to buy more rentals. My plan is to scrape the profit and use that to reinvest in buy and holds.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Charleston.

Purchase price: $260,000
Cash invested: $26,000

This property was going to be my primary residence only. In 2008, I got divorced and the market crashed the same year. My only option was to hold, in order to keep the property.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

It was in a great neighborhood. I purchased with the intention to live in as a primary residence. It was my primary home for 4 years before I moved away. I kept the property because the market turned in 2008 and to sell, I would have sold at a loss. I've had the same renters in the home for the last 10 years.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found it on vacation. I was living in CA at the time and vacationed in Charleston, SC. I negotiated the deal through a local agent and I was long distance.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional

How did you add value to the deal?

The home was newer so no value has been added.

What was the outcome?

Cashflow $400 per month. No vacancy in the last 10 years.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

The challenge was that I needed to sell when the market was down. The biggest lesson learned is that when the market shifts, you lose when you sell below your purchase price. Hanging on to the property and cashflowing, even just a little at the time, was the right decision. Now, the mortgage is paid down to $155k from $234k in the 15 years that I've owned the property. And the value bounced back and is now worth $300k ($40k more than my purchase price).

Hi Camille! I'm in the exact same boat as you are! So you are not alone. 

My approach has been similar with a small twist. My partner and I have a financial model that we built out, using hard money for the purchase and construction. And the equity is what we raise to cover the difference. We developed and fine tuned an investor presentation to send out. We included: how the ROI is calculated, how much equity we are working to raise, a breakdown of expenses, the expected ROI based on a conservative number, a list of comparable sales to support our ARV.

In the beginning, my business coach advised me to just make a list of all the wealthy people I know and blast it out to them. We got our first couple deals funded very easily. From there, once you have "happy customers" you can do video testimonials with your investors to showcase real people who are happy with your work and ROI. From your original investors, you can ask them who else they know who would be interested in making money like they did. And grow your database.

I know it's a little different from what you're doing. However, the concept is the same. I'm just leveraging more than you. I trust this helps!

If it were me, I'd probably call a pest inspector to check it out. Many in my area (Los Angeles) will do it for free so they can get the job to repair. When you have exposed wood like that, you are subjecting the property to pest damage. So before sealing it up, I'd just want to remove any potential termites - you don't want to seal them in. Plus, a termite inspector will be able to tell you if there is any structural damage.

@Frank Patalano for me it was fear of losing it all. I got divorced in 2008 and I worked in the mortgage industry at the time. I was overleveraged on my properties. And I lost all but 2. It took me way too long to dust myself off.

@Turo Tales the opportunities are endless. Get clear about your 5 year goal. Do you want to do buy and holds? Invest in flips? Then work the plan backwards!!

I've had an umbrella policy for several years. As @Todd Rasmussen mentioned above, there's personal and commercial. I just called my insurance provider yesterday to increase my policy. At the time that I first started investing, I was advised to have a $1M policy. However, now that I have 4 rentals, I was advised to increase it to $2M. Your provider may do it differently, but my provider only goes in $1M increments. So as I accumulate more assets, I'll have to revisit the coverage.

@Kevin Wilson what kind of investment are you looking for? I’m in LA and doing a buy-and-hold doesn’t make much sense. I’m doing flips in the Los Feliz area, making a minimum of 30% returns. We are always looking for equity investors. $50k would be perfect for us.