All Forum Posts by: Tim Swierczek

@Pascal Enohnyaket I would argue that Winter is the best time to start a BRRRR followed by Spring. This is because it's relatively easy to remodel in the Winter but it's nearly impossible to find a great tenant in the Winter. You need your project to be ready to rent by mid to late Summer; otherwise, you can cost yourself by either a bad renter pool or several months of vacancy.

The Twin Cities are too big to properly answer your question. I have experience working with Minneapolis, St Paul, Columbia Heights, Falcon Heights, and indirectly St Louis Park, Hopkins, and a few other municipalities. You need to pick an area to get a correct answer to this question. Feel free to reach out if you would like to discuss specifics.

@Tenzin Lhanzey You're starting at a good time if you want to purchase by April. It typically takes 1-3 months to find your home and a month to close, so you want to start now by getting approved for a mortgage. That will set the price points you can shop at. From there, you can match your price point with areas that interest you. It's good that you are interested in Minneapolis since around 2/3 of all 2-4 unit transactions in the twin cities are in Minneapolis.

If you want to meet other investors I recommend in-person meetups. BP does not allow them to be posted in this forum but if you PM me I can send you a list of 6+ in the Twin Cities. Good luck and reach out if you want to chat about investing.

@Matt J. Find a way to meet up with or listen to Chris Sherman. His family is a major player in the affordable housing market and new developments. His family owns some famous TC apartments.

Hi @Noe Alonzo Nesmith Jr welcome to Minnesota investing. I'm an investor and lender in the area. DM sent.

@Gabriela Tercero I recommend finding some local real estate groups. I like Meet-up Dot-com. If you find a local realtor and loan officer who specializes in investing in your area, start having conversations to get up to speed on your market. I'm happy to talk, PM me if you want to jump on a Zoom to discuss.

 I can send you a few agents but BP does not allow contact info in posts so PM me and I will connect you with a couple of options.

Hey Megan,

Welcome to BP. I'm always up to talk about investing and networking. Local REI meet-ups are a good way to meet local investors. PM me if you want to talk about investing in the Twin Cities.

@Peter Christensen I would go with your gut on this. Find 3rd party ways to verify the owner and employment as described. it would be very odd to have both an employer and landlord in two different states thousands of miles away that share an area code with the perspective tenant that is not in the market the home market of the PM or the employer. Very strange, seems like if it's true its one in a million.

Quote from @Julie Peak:

Hello! I just joined. I have a background in distressed properties. I have built my boutique broker business around foreclosures and other distressed properties (probate/divorce). I have a general contractor license so I also can repair and remodel properties before they go on the market. I love what I do everyday! I am licensed as a real estate broker in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I work with mostly investors as the properties I sell are usually fixer uppers. I'd love to connect with other investors and do some projects together and also help investors locate and make offers on properties. I'm located in the Twin Cities metro area. Let's connect! The picture is one my most recent listings. 

 Hi Julie,

I'm a fellow investor and Loan officer. We flip, LTR, Syndicate, and have one self-managed STR. I feel like there will be a flip opportunity or some ways to do some business together. Please PM me if you want to meet up?

@Daniel Windingstad I think @Marcus Auerbach makes a very good point. I have owned up to 200 units in one market at a time and I've owned as little as 40 long-term units in one market, excluding our vacation rental.  The issue with OOS investing comes to scale. It's not worth the travel and time to travel to a market to check on a property when your upside is a few extra hundred per month. You need to have many units or very high monthly CF to justify OOS investing.  I agree that finding CF is next to impossible in MN, but if you work hard to find the right deal and you get creative on your execution it can be done. I've found 2 duplexes in the last year and I haven't even looked all that hard. I'm having a meet-up at one of the properties on October 1st. I can't post about it here, but PM me if you want to more info.