All Forum Posts by: Remington Lyman

Nice to meet you all!

I'm John Wells and I've been listening to the Bigger Pockets for the past few months and am starting to begin my business. I'm very interested in a potential House Hack with a duplex or multi-unit to start and expanding from there. 

In my spare time I am very involved with NAMI and do a lot in the community to support their mission. Please reach out, I would love to connect. Especially would love to meet anyone in the Columbus Area!

We purchased our first rental in Toledo in December. A week ago our tenant received a notice to vacate due to Lead Hazard. We contacted Toledo-Lucas County Health Dept. and found out the property had a lead control order which was not disclosed by the seller when we purchased the property. Curious if we have any recourse with the previous owner at this point?

Hello everyone,  

I’m Jack, a 19‑year‑old finance major at CSULB. I’m jumping into real‑estate investing early and aiming to land my first deal within the next year. California prices push me to look out of state, and my college‑sized budget makes creative financing a must.

I’m here to pick up the nuts and bolts of analyzing markets and deals, swap stories with anyone who started young or light on cash, and build a network that keeps me accountable. If there’s a podcast episode, book, or hard‑earned lesson you think every beginner should hear, I’d love to know about it.

Glad to be here and looking forward to learning from all of you.

—Jack

Hi all! 

I'm an out of state investor looking to invest in the Columbus OH market. 

Does anyone have any contractor referrals for rehabs for the area? 

Much appreciated! 

Finally! My husband and I are buying our very first investment property!! It took 15 years to get out of student loan debt, pay down all other debts, get our kiddo through the bulk of a good private school we really wanted her to go to, and then save. 

The original plan was to save 5 months of personal reserves and then save 40K for a down payment on a house flip property. (We live in Ohio so it's cheap.) We would sell the flip, use what equity we got from that, maybe do that one more time and then eventually buy a BRRRR.

Well, we made it to reserves and 20k but...our neighbor's house came up for sale and it was a really good deal. There are a few things that need to be done to it but nothing crazy. It's in great condition. Here are the options:

1. Short or mid-term rental: 

Pros: 5 minutes outside a college town (think parents & professionals that visit). National tractor pulls yearly. 25 minutes from a new Meta data center that is about to start construction. I live next door and love hosting and cleaning. I would need to rent it out 8 days a month to break even. Occupancy rate in our area according to air DNA is 44%. (I'm thinking I could get more if I am pet friendly.) Big yard, only one neighbor, deer from time to time. Plus we could use it when our parents or in laws come into town. 

Cons: The city is small and safe but several houses look like crap (until you get back to where we live.... I am the only neighbor this house has and the rest is woods and big yards.) It's near train tracks- trains do come by occasionally but not everyday. I am worried about the vacancy. We can make the monthly payment on our W-2 incomes but things will be tight because we are using everything we've got cash-wise to make it happen. We have plenty of reserves in a college fund, several retirement accounts and a large HELOC. We will have to start from scratch on reserves though.

2. House flip- since we are buying this at a good deal, we already have some equity in the home. If I added a half bath upstairs, or even just put fresh carpet and paint I could probably flip it pretty quickly for a decent profit. This would be following my original plan and get us some more reserves to continue renovating or buying another house with less financial stress. 

3. Long-term rental: we could rent it out and make $100-200 cash flow.

I don't know. What do you guys think? You guys are the experts! 

@Remington Lyman  NE Ohio

 eXp is pretty good. They hold 0 debt, good splits/caps, and etc.. Let me know if you have more questions!

Hi, I am a new real estate investor looking to obtain my real estate license in the state of Ohio. I am looking for a broker to get my license under. Does anyone have any leads?

I looked up each profile of those advocating OOS BRRRR

- Kerlous Tadres and his AI generated reply that managed to get 3 upvotes: 3 local purchases

- Bernice Retzloff: 9 local purchases (all since mar 202405)

- Jimmy Lieu: 9 local purchases

- Ryan Rominger: 1 local purchase

- Ryan Rominger: 0 purchases listed

- Ryan Rominger: 0 purchases listed

I recognize not everyone keeps their profile current. My profile is missing my last $4m of value add purchases. However, each of these people 1) do not list a single OOS BRRRR 2) are RE Professiinals (mostly agents) in the markets they are advocating. My point is they are far from unbiased and apparently have not heeded their own advice by having done a single OOS brrrr amongst them.

I have done quite a few brrrr, all local Here are some of my thoughts: 1) they take work and oversite 2) the current brrrr market is significantly more challenging than it was from the GFC until q2 2022. 3) 2 recent reports show that it is cheaper to rent than to buy in virtually every large city market in the US. This implies If you can execute a good value add (already a challenge on a local BRRRR, but more challenging on an OOS BRRRR), then after a high LTV refi you will be cash flow negatively when properly allocating for sustained expenses. 4) where does it make most sense to add value, cheap markets or expensive markets? The answer is obvious if you think about it. If the brrrr is going to cost $0 after the value extract, the price of entry has no adverse consequence. you should choose the market that your value add will add the most value. A year ago on a rehab I added a half bathroom out of existing space. This was in an extreme high cost market (nearly $2k PSF). The comps showed this half bathroom added $59k of value. How much would adding a half bathroom out of existing space add in a low cost market such as Cleveland.

Lots to ponder.  By the way I agree with the various posts that recommend a house hack value add where you want to live.   Note those people have no financial incentive for this recommendation (assuming they are not an RE professional in your home market).

Good luck