All Forum Posts by: Chad Ballard

I was on the board of an HOA for 3 years and we were required to do a reserve study for the 160 unit association and update it over time. This study is an estimate of how much the HOA board needs to be putting away each year to cover large expenses down the road (might vary state by state if required).

Ask your board for the study and compare it to their annual budget. With an HOA you give up a lot of control of your investment. Expenses are always more than you think.

Forbes did a good article on this recently.

Yep, you will have to pay it. The program is phasing out the federal insurance subsidies. As far as investors go I have read about hikes from 25% to 1000% depending on how long you have owned the home and where it is located. Many of the lawmakers who passed the law are now backing down saying it isn't accomplishing what they thought it would. Wouldn't surprise me if they pass something to "fix" this, oh wait they caused it in the first place because of the substitutes and now they are looking for ways to save money.

If you do not have photo shop you can use some open source programs like Paint.net or Gimp.

Currently I use excel with some VB code to get fancy but have been thinking about making an access database to store everything. I think access can store pictures as well it is just taking the time to develop a good method to keep track of everything. You can make custom reports to to track marketing campaigns.

There are a number of CRMs that you could make work but maybe someone else knows of something more specific to real estate. The CRMs that I have used in the past (SugarCRM) are generalized for sales/businesses and have a lot of features that would not be of much value and are tough to customize.

Try the guide that BP has put together for you. It really is a good place to start getting a better idea of what type of investor you wish to be.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investing

I will add my welcome to everyone else's. There are some really great people you can meet on the site plus all the info. I work full time now in Fullerton and will be moving down to Orange County at the end of the month. Good luck in the investing world.

I loved framing houses. It seems like the project it is taking forever then boom the framers get there and the house goes up. Then back to taking forever to finish up the plumbing, electrical, roofing....

Usually a PE can stamp anything that he reviews and approves if he is licensed in that state. If they are not comfortable with stamping the type of work being done they will refer you to someone else that they know. You may want to look for a smaller civil and surveyor firm. This is the type of thing we do but in California. They will be able to work with you on both the engineering side and surveyor side and help avoid any unnecessary costs if possible. Definitely go local like Karen Margrave stated earlier, relationships with the city and counties is invaluable to speed up the process and to know what the cities are picky about before your submit plans to be checked.

I focused in the Provo/Orem market but I know people who have rentals that they like in West Valley and Ogden.