All Forum Posts by: Sherwin Gonzales

@Jonathan Roszkowski welcome to BP and thanks for sharing such a great introduction about yourself!

Once you figure out where you want to settle, I would suggest you house hack and purchase a 2-4 unit where you live in one unit and rent the others. Since this is your first property,  you can take advantage of first time home buyer loans and could get a deal with only 3.5% down if you want.

You mentioned the Bay Area is too pricey, but have you acutally analyzed and looked at deals? I've come across many posts on the forums with people having success locally in Oakland.

Go to meetups and network with people on the forums. I live in Oakland and you can find me running Lake Merritt from time to time, so if you wanna meetup and run and chat real estate, let me know! 

Maybe we can start a new meetup. Running for Dollars! 

Good luck on your journey!

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

-African Proverb

Time to think outside of the box! Have you thought about partnering up in joint ventures or getting involved in syndication? Perhaps you can find a deal that offers seller financing?

I had the same thoughts as you. I only have this much money so I can't afford to scale up. That's when I decided to partner up in a deal. 

Start asking yourself HOW you can scale up with only 170k. If you find a great deal that needs 300k to close, you already have over half of that money. If you really like the deal, I'm sure you can creatively find where to get the other half.

I personally like giving business to good people. A realtor can have all the experience in the world, have many investments, clients, etc. but if we don't get along, they have a bad attitude, or his goals don't align with mine, I wouldn't work with them.

Just remember you are building a team. You don't have to like people on your team on a personal level, but it helps. Experience is important, but it's not everything. 

This is a relationship business. And I like having great people on my team to make this journey a pleasant one.

Awesome that you are hooked on the BP bug! If this is your first property, definitely try to get a 2-4 unit and take advantage of putting only 3.5% down! As Amit says, live in one and rent out the rest.  You can renovate the units as they move out and re rent for higher! Use the cash flow to help you pay the mortgage and/or supplement your income. Good luck to you!

Scale up and go big! Get a bigger multi family property. One roof is easier to manage than a dozen or so separate roofs. What a great dilemma to have. Good luck with whatever you choose to do!

@Katlin H. Yah..that sounds about right actually. Sacramento is hot and investors want in, making it a sellers market in this area. People looking to offload their property know this and want top dollar! Guess gotta go after those off market deals! Good luck to you!

@Katlin H., where in Sacramento are you running your numbers and what types of multi family properties are you analyzing? 2-4 units or 5+? Are the rents low because these are value add properties? I have a 2 unit in Sacramento, a 3/1 and 1/1 generating rental income that is able to cover my mortgage and then some, so wondering which areas you are looking at?

Welcome to BP @Derek MacBay!

I have a similar story!

I'm from Hawaii....expensive real estate market.

Moved to LA for college....another expensive real estate market.

Decided to move to San Jose....expensive real estate market.

Then moved to Shanghai...don't even think about real estate in that market.

Then back to the states in SF....you get the point!

One advice is to start analyzing deals and call listing agents. From there you can build your network. I found a multi-family listing, called the agent and decided to make an offer. During my due diligence, I contacted a property manager of a building down the street from the building I made an offer to get an idea of rental comps in the area. Now that property manager is managing my property! And through that property manager, I was referred to a commercial real estate broker that they work with. Now that broker is helping me find my next deal!

Just take that first step and take action!

Good luck to you!

Hey @Calvin Kwan!

Congrats on your last step of your renovation! I guess it depends on how you envision the space to be? If you think renters will be more attractive to having an usable outdoor space for bbq's and outdoor furniture, then maybe brick pavers or concrete would be best. If you think they want something low maintenance, but a "yard", maybe like you said, mulch and some drought tolerant plants.

Have you seen the deck tiles/ pavers they have in Costco? It's similar to the one at the link below at amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Multy-Home-10-pack-Balcony-...

Not sure how easy/ hard it is to install but it's another option worth looking at.

Keep us posted on what you decide to do! Good luck!

It's crazy that this is even a topic! If Realtors want business, why don't they answer their phones? I've had this problem with Realtors in California, Hawaii, Nevada, etc. I've heard most don't answer regarding a particular listing because that listing might be under contract. But what about your other listings? What about your future listings? If they don't want to take the time to return calls, emails, etc., then I would just take my business elsewhere!

And that's how the cookie crumbles!.....