All Forum Posts by: Tim Delaney

Sounds like you may need to find a partner. Do you have financing lined up for the full project?

You could probably check with a consignment company. Another thought if you don’t want to go to deal with it yourself is hire an estate sale company to come in and sell what they can. After some stuff is sold you can see if Habitat for Humanity has a ReStore in the area, in my area they will come and pick up furniture and other home items to resell in their store - you can deduct some value from your taxes.

Have you spoken to the bank you used to buy the house? Or any other local bank. Since it's your primary, if you have enough equity you should be able to take out a Home Equity Loan for the remodel. They may make you do it in draws as you hit certain milestones.

Congrats on getting started. I got started in RE in my late 30’s with 3 kids. I’m now in my mid forty’s. It is possible, it’s not just for young single people!

I already had my own business, some cash, lines of credit and a solid contractor as a partner which is how I have grown my portfolio so aggressively over the past few years.

Unfortunately, $8k is not going to get you very far despite the promises of no money down investing. It is possible, but unlikely and risky. Do you have any equity in you existing home (if you own it) so you can leverage a HELOC to use as an emergency fund?

I know it seems like a tough task, but can you spend a few more months or a year while you continue to learn to really tighten the budget or find ways to earn a little extra to start from a stronger position?

I don’t have any direct experience with retirement accounts as I never opted to use them so I could keep cash available for investing now. But if you are really set on RE you may want to explore options of borrowing against them or taking cash out early. I’m sure others have more experience with that.

Good luck!

 Well if you want to be respected and don't want people to feel like you are trying to pull one over on them then it's probably best that you are upfront with everyone about what you are doing. If you are an agent it is important that you make sure you talk to your broker so they know what you are doing. From what I've heard some brokers do not allow their agents to wholesale. But I know of others in my area that the entire brokerage trains their agents in how to wholesale, but they will also list the house if that is what the owner prefers.

I don’t think that is a blanket statement. There are a lot of investors that are wholesalers and/or buy from wholesalers regularly. Some agents are also wholesalers and/or get leads from wholesalers.

That said, it is an industry that has some grey areas to it from a legal perspective. And, as with any industry, there are some bad actors that have given the profession a bad image.

If you go into it, figure out how you can differentiate yourself. And always  remember to operate with integrity 

It looks like you are in Buffalo, NY as am I. RJ Gullo advertises everywhere about 1031 exchanges - I've never used him, but I know he does them.

From what I understand about what you said it looks like you are trying to do an installment sale (downpayment now, then payments overtime). Even if that is not your intention, the IRS could decide that is what it was which would mean that the seller would have lost his 1031 ability since he "sold" you the house when he accepted the first payment. Also, in a 1031 the seller cannot take possession of the funds so you giving him the downpayment to do repairs would be challenging. I also don't understand why you would want to tie up your cash so long without the benefits of owning the properties.

The scenario of you buying a few now and the rest in a couple years seems to be the most appealing for you both, why are you adverse to that? You can always sign a contract to buy the remaining properties anytime with a closing date scheduled for the future (not sure why he would want to do that though since we don't know what will happen appreciation-wise). Or you can just be flexible on closing those properties so he can line up the 1031.

I think that is a great strategy if you are using the money for short term projects like a flip or a BRRRR. Just be sure the calculate in the interest you are paying on that HELOC into the new project.

As for banks, my experience has been that many banks do not like to do HELOCs on rentals unless you have a decent portfolio which they then look at as a business instead of a single rental property. But maybe with that much equity they will be willing to work with you.

I don't know New Jersey law, but based on your first sentence in your post it sounds like you need to send the check by certified mail, not Zelle. Any advice you get here you should take with a grain of salt if you already looked up the law yourself. I'm sure some people have used Zelle and it is not an issue. But if the former tenant ever wants to cause an issue you will have been in the wrong. One way this can happen is if there were two tenants on the lease - the check should be made out to both of them. If you use Zelle that is probably only going to one of them, so the other person could claim they never received the deposit.

I sold two new builds this year in the Buffalo, NY area. They both took longer to sell than our fix and flips usually do. But that could have been because we priced them high to start, especially the second one because of its prime location with no new construction comps.