All Forum Posts by: Tom Cafarella

Does anyone know of any software/app that allows you to use a photograph of a property and show what it would look like after renovation?

Hi Everyone,

My name is Tom Cafarella and I am a real estate investor in the Greater Boston area. I've done over 500 investment deals in the Greater Boston area in the last 5 years and have reached a point where doing more deals in my local market is next to impossible.

I am looking to expand into other markets. Unfortunately, I can't travel often enough to do all of the work myself(I have 3 and 6 month old kids) so I am looking for individuals who want to learn the real estate investing business(flipping, wholesaling, buy and hold) and execute my systems in their local market. I am willing to travel out to most markets as long as I have the right person in that area.

The right fit would be someone who is very hungry and willing to follow the systems that I use in my business that have allowed me to be the #1 investor in my area. You need to want to work(no 4 hour work-weekers) and take direction.

You would be able to plug and play into all of the systems that I have built up in Greater Boston and would be able to come to our office(if you want) to get some basic training or do the training remotely. I would also be able to come out to where you are located(just not that frequently because of my kids).

If you are interested, please go to learn-how-to-invest-in-real-estate.com and I have a short webinar recording on what the next steps are.

Thanks,

Tom Cafarella

Ocean City Development

www.ocbuyshouses.com

Hi Everyone,

My name is Tom Cafarella and I am a real estate investor in the Greater Boston area. I've done over 500 investment deals in the Greater Boston area in the last 5 years and have reached a point where doing more deals in my local market is next to impossible.

I am looking to expand into other markets. Unfortunately, I can't travel often enough to do all of the work myself(I have 3 and 6 month old kids) so I am looking for individuals who want to learn the real estate investing business(flipping, wholesaling, buy and hold) and execute my systems in their local market. I am willing to travel out to most markets as long as I have the right person in that area.

The right fit would be someone who is very hungry and willing to follow the systems that I use in my business that have allowed me to be the #1 investor in my area. You need to want to work(no 4 hour work-weekers) and take direction.

You would be able to plug and play into all of the systems that I have built up in Greater Boston and would be able to come to our office(if you want) to get some basic training or do the training remotely. I would also be able to come out to where you are located(just not that frequently because of my kids).

If you are interested, please go to learn-how-to-invest-in-real-estate.com and I have a short webinar recording on what the next steps are.

Thanks,

Tom Cafarella

Ocean City Development

www.ocbuyshouses.com

Hi Everyone,

My name is Tom Cafarella and I am a real estate investor in the Greater Boston area.  I've done over 500 investment deals in the Greater Boston area in the last 5 years and have reached a point where doing more deals in my local market is next to impossible.

I am looking to expand into other markets.  Unfortunately, I can't travel often enough to do all of the work myself(I have 3 and 6 month old kids) so I am looking for individuals who want to learn the real estate investing business(flipping, wholesaling, buy and hold) and execute my systems in their local market.  I am willing to travel out to most markets as long as I have the right person in that area.

The right fit would be someone who is very hungry and willing to follow the systems that I use in my business that have allowed me to be the #1 investor in my area.  You need to want to work(no 4 hour work-weekers) and take direction.

You would be able to plug and play into all of the systems that I have built up in Greater Boston and would be able to come to our office(if you want) to get some basic training or do the training remotely.  I would also be able to come out to where you are located(just not that frequently because of my kids).  

If you are interested, please go to learn-how-to-invest-in-real-estate.com and I have a short webinar recording on what the next steps are.  

Thanks,

Tom Cafarella

Ocean City Development

www.ocbuyshouses.com

Not a problem.  If you join a brokerage that does not require you to join a realtor board, it won't cost you anything.  That is the best way to go for sure.  

In general, getting rid of current tenants is a process. Depending on the laws of your state, it can be very lengthy. Where I live(in Boston), it can take up to a year to get a tenant out. If you are evicting a tenant, they generally won’t pay you rent during this time, so you need to consider how long you can float the mortgage if you go this way.

From an overall perspective, you almost always make much more money by getting new tenants in. Older tenants typically are paying below market rents(especially given that the last few years have seen significant increases in rental rates). We do this on a lot of our buildings because we have the resources available to do so, but it will cause you to be negative cash flow for a while.

If you cannot afford to eat the negative monthly amount, I would suggest meeting with all of your tenants, seeing how close they are to fair market value, and trying to see if you can get them up a little bit to start. Then as they move out, you can renovate the units and get full market rents. This will be a lot easier to do because you would only likely have 1 vacancy at a time.

Hi, I am in Boston and we also are in a market where it is not easy to cash flow. There are a couple of things to consider:

1. Area you are buying in. In some of the mid to upper tier markets it may be impossible to cash flow no matter what you do. Typically speaking the mid to lower tier markets are much easier and you may need to go there in order to cash flow on day 1. We do that and we have pretty much all govt subsidized rental programs. The guaranteed money makes these markets worth it(in my opinion)
2. In general: Buying more units gives you a bigger discount per unit: I would never even consider condos, single fams, or 2 fams. Try to get 3 units plus per building and you will have a much easier time cash flowing. Once you get above 4 units, you can generally get much better deals because you are not competing with first time homebuyers who can get FHA loans for these properties.
3. If you want to get a really great deal, you should be marketing for properties before they hit the market. The steps for doing this are below:

Step 1: Determine what type of houses you want to invest in. This may seem simplistic but you really want to know exactly the types of houses that you want. For example, what geographic area, style of house, multi unit versus single family, size of the house etc.

Step 2: Once you know what you want to target, that allows you to then build the list. For example, if you want to buy single family ranges in a particular town, that narrows the search down and then you can move on onto step 3

Step 3: Find contact info for every one of these people: cell phone, home phone, emails, social media profile, home address, etc

Step 4: Put the information into a database: I like using a CRM like Follow Up Boss, but you can use an excel sheet to start

Step 5: Market to these people: call(on a dialer), email, message on social media, door knock, mail, etc. until you get one on one appointments with them

not a problem.  Good luck.  Finding good contractors is a long process, but once you get good ones, they make your life a whole lot easier(and profitable)

When building a list, you have 2 options:

1. Option 1: target motivated sellers, regardless of locations. Examples of lists include(but are not limited to): notice of default lists(behind on mortgage), absentee owner lists, bankruptcy lists, probate lists, etc.
2. Option 2: target specific properties that you want to buy and market to all of those people. For example, if you know that you want to buy only ranch style homes in one specific town, you would build out a database of all of the people in this location.

There are pros and cons to each of these approaches. For example:

1. Option 1: target motivated sellers, regardless of locations: pros to marketing to this list are that you are going to get more motivated individuals and you will have an easier time getting good deals under contract. The cons to this approach are that these properties may not be in the geographic location that you want or may not the the types of properties that you want(for example, you may not want to buy a multi family house, but that is what may be on this list)
2. Option 2: target specific properties that you want to buy and market to all of those people. The pros of this is that every lead that you generate is going to be a house that you know you are going to want to buy. The cons here are that it is going to be harder to generate leads(meaning you will have to spend more money, time and energy) to get a seller to meet with you and sell.  

It has been my experience that using a GC is always the better route and I use a GC on 100 percent of my own jobs. What I have found is that when you hire the right GC, you are getting all reliable subs underneath them. By reliable, I mean both that they show up to work and that they operate in line with budget.

The problem that I have always had when trying to hire all of the subs myself, is that there is always 1 or 2 subs that we end up having a problem with on any one particular job and in the end that ends up costing us more money. For example, if the electrician that you hire just walks off of the job, you may end up paying nearly double for the electrical work because you need to hire a second person.

The other reason that I believe strongly in the GC model is because in many cases the GC has workers that stay with them all year round and they are able to pay them a lower rate because they are guaranteeing them consistent work. For example, a GC may have painters that are with them all the time and give the GC a premium rate. If you go and try to hire that same painter, they will likely end up charging you more.

I am not saying that you can't put together your own team of subs, but I have found that it is a lot more work and has never actually had a financial benefit for me.