All Forum Posts by: Susan Maneck

My mother has an LLC for her self-directed IRA which owns property in Mississippi and a note in Nevada. She is a California resident but the LLC is in Mississippi. I'm pretty sure this is kosher.

Jackson has had water issues for decades but thanks to the recent crisis they are finally doing something about it. I always drank bottled water when I lived there. 

There is a facebook group 

Mississippi Association of Real Estate Investors Private Group

They just started having meetups again after the pandemic. 

I think part of what is happening in Mississippi is that the rent income relative to cost of houses is so good it is attracting an awful lot of out-of-state investors who have trouble finding deals elsewhere. That is keeping the price of real estate up. 

In Jackson, MS I'm seeing homes stay on the market longer but I don't see prices going down. 

I own five houses in Jackson, Mississippi in a flood zone on a single street. However, water has never gotten into the houses in my neighborhood, not even in 1979 when most of Jackson was under water. We did get hit hard by Hurricane Katrina even though we were 100 miles inland. They were a lot of old trees in that neighborhood and during the Hurricane they were not our friends. A lot of cars and houses got smashed and we were without electricity for nine days because they couldn't get to the transponders because of all the downed trees. The neighborhood looked like a war zone. But property values in Jackson including my neighborhood went up, not down, mostly because New Orleans doesn't fit in Jackson. I bought my rental properties in the same neighborhood I lived during Katrina a few years later during the recession. 

Where I would not buy property is on the Mississippi Coast. There, entire communities were wiped out. I'm amazed Louisiana is not on your list. How soon we forget. 

The Real Estate Agency I work with is Dove Realty owned by Katrina Hawkins. Her number is 601-238-3287. Her husband does most of my handy man work. Fondren is the best place for small multis, but I could never afford them there. Yes, I acquired all my properties BRRRR but the way I was able to finance them is no longer available. I pulled together enough money with my mother to pay cash for our first house and then rehabbed it with my credit cards. After a year I refinanced it via a first-place HELOC from Wells Fargo. They were the only bank I knew which would give HELOCs to rental properties. I then turned around and used the money to buy another house. I ended up with five houses that way. Alas, Wells Fargo no longer has those. The reason I did it that way is that it is really hard and really expensive to get financing for houses that cost less than 50K unless they are owner occupied. Of course, nowadays there aren't many houses in that price range, at least not ones you want to buy. The rest of my properties I purchased through a solo401K. If you have any self-employment income that might be worth looking into. Dmitri with Sense Financial who belongs to BiggerPockets set mine up. I've only had three properties with standard mortgages. Two of them I sold last year and my son lives in the last one while he finishes his PhD at UMMC.

Aside from my son's condo all my properties are in the South Jackson 39212 area. 

I moved to California to take care of my mother during the pandemic, but I could give you some advise on any properties in the Jackson area which is where all of mine are located. I only have one multi-family property myself which I'm getting ready to put on the market. Unfortunately it will not go FHA because I don't think the back house was ever permitted. At least there is no record on it with the county land roll.  I get $1500-$1600 a month for it and I'm only asking 95K which is the value of the front house. I can recommend a good property manager/real estate agent for the Jackson area, though. 

If you are willing to live in one of the units, you can get an FHA loan with only 3% down because it will be considered owner occupied. Virtually any local bank or even credit union should finance it. I like Hope Credit Union myself because of their commitment to racial equity. I find it a good place to put my emergency funds as well because their checking account pays 3% interest on the first $10,000.

Most wholesalers and investors here in Jackson use real estate lawyers rather than title companies. Steve Younger is one I've worked with as a buyer and I'm pretty sure the property I bought was a double close. Most title companies here don't want to touch those.