All Forum Posts by: Matt C.

@Account Closed my suggestion would be to donate your time to an experienced real estate investor in your area that has done some successful flips. Learn as much as you can and ask questions. It is not likely that you'll qualify for any kind of financing to purchase high end homes working a part time job. For the time being get as much experience as you can and it'll open doors in the future for you to partner/JV on a deal. Good luck!

@Leslie Phelan I couldn't agree more with what @Jay Hinrichs said. There is no better way to learn REI than to work 40+ hours/week for an investor. You will begin to eat/sleep real estate investments. Just become a sponge and soak up as much knowledge as possible.

@Mark G. interesting! I'll be watching for updates.

@Paul Corona 

Welcome to BP! Hopefully you will find it as helpful as I have. Let me know if there is anything I can help out with.

@Brandon Heath it may look terrible numbers wise and I am sure many people on here will tell you it is. Unfortunately not everyone can live in an area where you can buy a $60k duplex and have your tenant cover your whole mortgage. This certainly wouldn't be one of those cases without a hefty down payment. However, keep in mind that Poway is very expensive and decent SFRs sell for $500k+ and if you have to live somewhere you might as well have somebody help with the mortgage. Also, Poway has very few 2-4 unit properties so when compared to these properties this might be a decent deal if they have similar rents but are selling for more than $525k. If you did go with a 5% conventional you could get in for relatively cheap (for the area) and still have you tenant pay for roughly have your mortgage. Either way it beats renting. The downside is that if you ever move out you will have negative cash flow every month. 

@Richard Alvarez we used KTS Law (who you're using) for well over 100 eviction cases. We never had any issues with them and they always seemed to get any holdovers out without any real issues. Just stay on top of them and you should be ok. Unfortunately California is very tenant friendly and there is not much you can do about that. Best of luck to you and let us know if you have any updates.

nice work @Ryan Melton ! That's an excellent conversion rate!

@Jay Hinrichs 

@Jon Holdman I agree it is a big job. I have actually done this work before as I do work for a drainlayer/earthmoving contractor in New Zealand so I'm not sure how different the process would be from the USA.  I did leave out some details - 200mm of pea shingle underneath the pipe and 200-300mm on top as cover. Topped with 65mm shingle and compacted with a foot wacker in 300-400mm layers. Then top layer of 32mm compacted for asphalt/concrete prep. I agree that there would need to be shoring where the connections would be made - I myself refuse to get in any hole that is above chest high. We do this work daily with a komatsu pc55 5.5 ton excavator. BJs rentals in San Diego rents a 6 ton excavator for $300/day. I was a little off on my pricing but I would think Las Vegas would be close in price. I totally agree that nat is obviously not gonna do this work herself especially if she is out of the country and unable to make it to the property. I was just saying that if it were me that is what I would do. I think it's because I do it daily for work and would have a hard time shelling out $20k when it's something I am more than capable of doing with a helper in 2-3 days. In this case, @Nat C.  may be better off selling to rid herself of the headache - I just hope she doesn't take a bath on the sales price.

@Nat C. 

like @Darrell Shepherd said - if you decide to repair it you might find it considerably cheaper to hire the subs separately. If it were me I would rent a quick cut saw and just cut roughly 16" width where the pipe runs. This should be more than enough to trench with a 12" trenching bucket. You can rent an excavator @$250/day (shouldn't take more than 2 days). The only area that would need to have a larger hole would be at the connection points on either end. Then, you should be able to hire a drainlayer/sewer professional to come in and lay the pipe to ensure that you have the correct fall, etc. At this point the concrete and asphalt work is more of a repair than a full scale concrete job. Now obviously you're out of state and this avenue might be a bit difficult but you could always find an owner-operator off of craigslist to do the excavation? I know that in my area there is a guy that advertises on craigslist for $50/hr. That is not a bad rate and should be cheaper than $20k.

@Rami W. How many units are allowed on the lot? Is this in the 92113 zip?