All Forum Posts by: Steven Gesis

 Eugene, great consideration, Cleveland is absolutely superb. What are your investing parameters? 

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 Major, you are correct they are telling you what you want to hear, just contact another lender and ask the hard questions, sometimes you may not want tot hear something but at minimum it will put you in the right direction to get to your goal. I am not a lender, but I work with a lot of clients who use this product, so we engage with many lenders as well, I can certainly tell you that you should be able to get a letter if you are truly qualified, letters are just the begging, do your homework. Just go to a bank, if you do not feel confident with a broker, you can go to another bank, you are located in Lexington, KY? 

Hi James-

I welcome your idea, I personally think it is never to late to invest in real estate and with will and creativity you can do it with even fixed income. You may want to consider the following options:

• Consider purchasing and moving to a duplex to begin with, use a FHA Renovation Loan if need be = 3.5 % down payment, renovation funded by lender ---> Lowest Rate % because government backed
• Rent (½) and live in (½) = reduced cost of living  ---> Divert savings for future investment purchase

You can finance your next acquisition with a conventional investor loan. You can consider using an investor renovation loan to flip a home (requires I think 20% down payment = needs more cash) - Consider using your IRA or Self Directed IRA if you have one, hard money lender. Lastly if you have an existing home, consider using your line of equity if you have equity in your home to make investments, you will get favorable terms upfront and then turn it to permanent financing.

Lots of options exist, I think its critical to develop a purpose and a strategy, then define funding, we have a basis to go from, now we just need an exact focus and move to that goal.

Much luck!

Welcome @Michael Greene

Awesome place to move, great choice! 

Cleveland offers a unique space for Real Estate investing and has an abundance of opportunity both east and west side. 

Suburban settings with homes below $100k with $1,000+ monthly rent = Superior ROI

Happy to assist on the east side and share ideas. 

Welcome!

 Major, you just placed a whole new spin on your situation, you will want to discuss this with other lenders, perhaps before you get to far in your application process in general. 

 Hi Major! You should have no issue getting a pre-approval for the loan, as you would for any other loan. I would advise you to trust your gut, perhaps its time to pursue an alternate lender. You are absolutely correct!  You want this document in hand, worst case scenario you find out he does not do this product, once your offer is accepted. It sucks to have to seek out a new lender last minute under pressure.

Yona, welcome to Cleveland :)

Have you been or planning on traveling to CLE? Are you in Israel now or in US now? Cleveland is a great space, if you check out some of my other posts you will find that I am a big supporter of Cleveland. What is your strategy, you must first define this before you define your agent and representative. 

Feel free to contact me via BP private message.

Aaron, congratulations! I can appreciate your concern for possibly over improving the home, however, you will only be able to improve as much as the home  and immediate can bear for your after renovation value based on your scope.  So you will not spend more than the home will appraise for after renovation.

Now you have the ability to decide what kind of investor or landlord you want to be. My immediate reaction is apply the most you can to the (2) units today, to mitigate future capital expenditures. Certainly address the mechanicals, you will need to comply with HUD guidelines for health and safety and after that, it is up to you. the following basic materials are for you to consider when completing your renovation, while considering the future implications of tenant turn-over:
*Flooring

• NO Carpet
• Tile wet areas if this in your budget or simply install a resilient Rubberized Vinyl Floor plank system
• General areas - either refinish hardwood if existing or a new resilient tongue & groove laminate flooring

*Paint

• Standardize the paint color throughout the entire interior, do not get fancy with painting different rooms different color, just more of a headache to deal with at each tenant turnover

*Electrical

• Updated electrical schedule, new outlets and switches you want everything to be nice and bright, you want the wow factor no matter the area or rents, you want everything to be clean and look appealing
• New Lighting schedule - consider using LED - it is brighter (better presentation) - more energy efficient and should be a smaller maintenance burned over time.

*Doors

• Consider standardizing all the door hardware throughout

This is a small list of items to consider, Im sure we can do the same applications throughout the house to every surface, just need to decide if you want to do something high quality, cost effective materials to mitigate your long term burden or if you are soon that wants to cut confess now and deal with the problems later.  Everyone has different strategies, but if you want my opinion we have found the best practice to be doing large capital infusion on front end addressing the big ticket items and misc. problematic areas then have to deal with it later through maintenance deal with upset tenants.

Congrats & Good Luck.

 Mike, could not have said it any better, a PM can work and is designed to be way more effective than a single individual, just the systems and staffing alone will trump, you are so right your time is worth way more and no way you can be as diligent and efficient. Again, I just think hiring  a PM is the only way to go, especially if you are out of state landlord. 

 Mike, the financing company who offers this option is B2R lending, they offer a unique portfolio loan, however, once you leverage/package the homes for the loan, the homes cannot be sold for a period minimum of 5 years and in some cases up to 10 years. I am including a link: B2R Financing - Contact Information . They have a lot of contract information, I advise read carefully and thoroughly. 

You can also try First Key Lending 

These (2) are certainly the initial (2) that come to mind as notable portfolio lenders, essentially this is a commercial line loan and is treated as such. You will be able to pull out 80% LTV of appraised value, they are picky about area and condition of homes, they will require appraisals to be conducted. Please PM me of you would like any more advice on this subject matter.

These are the lenders you are seeking for the item you are requesting, one last thing to keep in mind these are balloon loans, so you will need to refi after your term period os over, I know B2R was offering a promotional 12 month future different period, just in case you needed extra time beyond your loan period.