All Forum Posts by: Ryan Evans

Depends on what part of the city you're in as well. Some of the suburbs there you'll get your money back on landscaping while others maybe not so much. 

I'd get on a plane or drive over and see for yourself if it's right for you to invest out of state. Especially if you're a teacher and you've got the next couple months off. 

I don't think retirement or money is really the goal for anyone at the core.

Having wealth just means money doesn't make your decisions for you and you can spend your life doing whatever you want to at that time. You might want to sit on your porch one day and drive a Ferrari the next. Just depends on the day of the week! 

I'm sure someone else here can weigh in, but I believe 2018 taxes are being reassessed across the city, which happens every 3 years. Values have gone up so it's likely that your taxes will rise to reflex that. 

The previous owner could have disputed the taxes with the county and had them brought down, so you might be right in that they will go right back up again. Taxes from suburb to suburb vary drastically there, so this will also depend which part of town you're in. 

I don't mean to ignore the importance of building relationships and what the others have said, but this gets asked a lot. And very simply put, the job of a real estate agent (obviously from the listing side) is literally to find off market deals and put them on the market. 

If you don't have a reason for them to give you a discount, such as buying in volume, they're going to sell them for the highest price and put them on the MLS.

Your numbers are almost identical to an active listing on LoopNet in that area, so I assume it's the same building you're talking about. 

Have you ever been to Cleveland? I know you said you know people from the city, but if you haven't done a deal with them then you might be getting yourself into trouble. I'm in Cleveland right now and drove past that property recently. It's pretty rough. I'd get on a plane and see it for yourself if you're serious. 

Be patient as well. You might analyze hundreds of deals before finally finding one worth jumping on, but by doing that you'll know exactly what to look for and when to pull the trigger.

One of the best ways to spot a good deal is to know what's a bad deal and you've just got to see tons of deals to get there.

Not that I'd encourage going for a bad deal, but if you don't hit your goal 100% on your first deal, you'll at least have started and will learn A TON. Take that knowledge and use the momentum. But one of the biggest challenges is just starting. So you should analyze more deals, but don't wait for the perfect one to come along either :)

I don't really have much real advice here, but on top of what the others have said, I'd recommend doing some research into the stats about the influence of money coming down from Vancouver. I went to WWU and lived in Van for a while and always came across investors going across the border to park money in Whatcom county. The town is in a less fluctuating market than down south, but if Vancouver has a dip then it will likely impact Bham. I don't know the stats, but Canadian money has a significant impact on the market there. 

If you decide to sell, I know a great agent up there that I went to school with :) 

Awesome! Glad to have some reassurance as I'm looking to scale up in a similar fashion in the Cleve! 

I think you've just got to work with what you've got and that will define how you scale quickly. For some people, it makes much more sense to stay in a great paying stable job so they can get financing and build up cash quick. For others like me, that's not an option. I personally lived in a few different countries, had several 3+ month long gaps between consulting contracts, and now live in one of the most overpriced markets. So I had to get creative.

I went the non-traditional route and used someone else's money to buy my second property out of state. And I'm making offers on more properties without any of my own cash. But would I be doing this under different circumstances? Probably not. 

It sounds like you're in a similar position, so you might start by finding out how you can add value, looking into other states, and starting to really focus on networking for partners.