All Forum Posts by: Rebecca Sequeira

You might check out websites that cater to travelling nurses, like furnishedfinder.com.  A friend of mine recently listed a property on there and has quickly rented it for 3 months to someone that is on a temporary work assignment to start up a hotel.  You can post your minimum stay requirement.  Most of the listings I saw on there were 30 day minimum, but you could always set a 6 month minimum and see what happens.    I know several folks who own airbnb properties and they often get folks staying for longer time frames.  The real challenge for you will be getting that 6 month rental to coincide with the months you aren't using it.

@Manuel Villegas And this is for ALL new investors : Get involved with REIA's in the areas you are interested in. (Real Estate Investor Association) These are amazing organizations where investors gather and share info. There are still LOTS of off-market deals to be had, and a good REIA will be a source of fantastic education and networking. I am in the Cincinnati area and we have an amazing REIA organization here, and so does Columbus. In fact we have been meeting jointly with the Columbus (Central Ohio) group throughout the whole pandemic. We meet 1st and 3rd Thursdays on Zoom, and there are also about 20 virtual "focus" groups that you can be part of if you are a member (rehabbers, landlords, apartment owners, creative financing, note buyers, short term rentals, etc). Our membership is only $25/month or $247/ year. This should be your first investment - in your education!

Check out www.cincinnatireia.com or www.centralohioreia.com .  Just take a peek at the calendar and you'll be amazed at the huge amount of info available to you.  We now have members from all over the country who have joined our groups because we meet on Zoom.  And there's a deal making session every Friday morning for members only.

For newbies who want to learn the fundamentals of RE investing, Cinci REIA has a program called Express Success which is great - it's a course but also includes admission to a year's worth of detailed workshops. Check it out on the website.

Hi Gold -

I'm happy to chat with you about the properties you are finding.  I rehab houses and I'm also a realtor, so send me a DM and let's connect.

Sure! 

Originally posted by @Abigail Cariaga:

@Rebecca Sequeira I’m interested to join. How do I get in?

Go to www.cincinnatireia.com or www.centralohioreia.com

Gawaine - as mentioned above, Ohio is a great place to invest. If you are interested in Cincinnati or Columbus, I recommend joining either Cincinnati REIA or COREE (Columbus area). (I'm in Cincinnati). We've been meeting online throughout the whole pandemic - joint meetings. There's a tremendous amount of free education and networking - and the membership is only $25/mo or $247/yr. Best investment!!! There's also about 20 'focus' groups - rehabbers group, landlord group, apartment investors, short-term rentals, new investors, note investos, creative financing, etc and more.

Attend the first meeting for free and check it out.

Hi @Christian Duke    

Welcome to the world of real estate investing! I highly recommend joining Cincinnati REIA at www.cincinnatireia.com.
Make this your first investment!   We are blessed to have one of the BEST RE investor associations in the nation right here in Cinci.  We meet 1st and 3rd Thursdays (one live, and one on Zoom), plus there are a BUNCH of subgroups that you can join for free if you are a member.  Tons of very good education and networking - it is more than worth the small price of membership.  (And people from all over the country have now joined our REIA since we have been 100% online throughout the whole pandemic).  It's just $25/mo or $247/year.  

We used Spring Valley Bank to purchase the property, and used our own cash for the rehab.  Spring Valley has been great to work with.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $123,000
Cash invested: $80,000
Sale price: $250,000

Updated this 3 br/ 3 bath tri-level home - replaced siding, roof, deck, sidewalk, garage door, front door, all interior doors, all cabinets/granite countertops, all new tile in 3 full baths, new paint & flooring.

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

This house was the ugliest house in a very nice neighborhood. It was ugly/dated on the outside and I knew it was also in bad shape on the inside - damage done by a previous tenant.

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

This was my 4th flip, but the first one that I found through word-of--mouth. It was down the street from a friend of mine, and he gave me the number for the out of state owner. I had several conversations with him over several months before he finally agreed to sell. His son was living there at the time, so he needed time to find his son a new place. I offered him $123k, and he said he'd think about it. He asked if I could do more, but when I said no he accepted the offer.

How did you finance this deal?

Hard money lender - our total financing costs were about $10k, rehab costs were $70k

How did you add value to the deal?

We replaced ugly dark brown diagonal cedar siding w/ light gray vinyl siding. Removed half wall b/w breakfast area and lower family room & replaced it w/ iron spindles, which visually opened up the space a lot. Removed the old wood plank "sidewalk" & porch,; added concrete sidewalk and porch. Removed large ground-level deck that filled up the backyard, & rebuilt the upper portion of the deck. Removed the pantry closet, removed the soffit, closed up the old skylights; wider door to garage.

What was the outcome?

A beautiful home! Sold easily for asking price.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

This was on a corner lot, and the house was placed very far back on the lot so there was very small backyard. Ended up putting in a fence for the buyer - lesson learned is that we should have fenced it earlier. It took a couple of weeks to sell, when it should have sold in a few days.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Middletown.

Purchase price: $103,000
Cash invested: $42,000
Sale price: $162,500

First flip project. Removed walls to open up the kitchen to the dining/living area. Removed the DIY screen panels on the patio, which made it much more attractive. Painted all woodwork white (had been stained). Refinished hardwood floors.

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

I've always loved doing home renovation projects, and I also used to be a project engineer in my career. We wanted to start flipping houses.

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

I met another investor while sitting at the courthouse for the Sheriff Sale, and in talking with him learned that he had bought too many houses and needed to sell one. We really paid too much for the house (by probably $10-20k) because we were overly optimistic. This investor also promised he would advise me, and that I could use his subcontractors to do the work, so there was some benefit in that (and that all worked out for the most part).

How did you finance this deal?

Paid cash.

How did you add value to the deal?

My husband and I did a lot of the work ourselves because we wanted to learn, and also to save on costs, but it ended up taking longer to finish it because we were both working full time jobs at the time. We removed the walls between the kitchen and dining/living space, which made it more open and it turned out beautiful!

What was the outcome?

We got it under contract very quickly, but due to the holidays, it took almost 2 months to close. We did not make hardly anything (about $1500 !) but we decided this was our "classroom" and we learned a TON, so we count it as a success for the education we received.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

We learned the hard lesson about paying too much for the house -- you can't recover from that. And we added scope after we got into it, and also discovered a drainage issue, so we had underestimated repairs by about 10-15k. I learned a lot about estimating repairs better.