All Forum Posts by: Troy DeLong

@Dino Dziljaj If you're saying that you've got $70k to throw into a real estate purchase and not just in your savings, then I'd say you can get something decent in Lansing. Sounds like you've got good W2 income and if you've got a good credit score to go with it, I'd stick with a conventional loan (generally 20-25% down) to jump into your first property. DSCR won't have as good of terms and it's really only for when people can't support a conventional loan with their credit or DTI.

Lansing has a local credit union (Consumers Credit Union) that was offering a 10% down investment loan (at higher interest) last year to non-owner occupants. You could reach out to them and see if that's still an option. 

Also, I'm an agent / investor out of Lansing, MI and would be more than happy to chat with you about our local market if you'd like. Let me know! 

Hey Alex. Happy Friday to you. 

I'm an agent / investor out of the Lansing area. I've got two great Property Manager contacts. One is FULL service and the other offers more of an a-la-carte service, for Owners wanting to do more of an automated property management online but still have guidance and boots on the ground. 

More than happy to share both if you want to shoot me a text! 

@Robert Smith 

Hey Robert! I'm not in the Denver area, but I am an agent / investor in the Lansing, MI market. More than happy to hop on a call / Zoom with you to discuss our market. 

@Mohammed Youssef  I'm an agent / investor out of the Lansing, MI area and would love to chat with you about our market. Reach out anytime. 

- Troy 

Our next event is Thursday (2/27) and you can simply show up. RSVP on the FB event if you can.  

@Aidan Jones We host the largest REI group in the Lansing, MI area twice a month at our office. Search 'Achieve Real Estate Investors' on Facebook and you will find our page that has all of our meeting details. It's the page with the monopoly pieces for the profile picture. I would share the link, but BP flagged my post last time for doing that.

Our members do everything from Flipping, Buy & Hold, Wholesaling, Realtor work, money lending, etc. I may be biased, but I believe our group will have the most value to offer to you in the Lansing area. 

- Troy 

@Byoung Bae  Welcome to BP! 

I think your goal of getting your first RE investment for around $50k is doable as long as you plan to leverage debt (Loan). I currently have eight out-of-state investor clients that I've worked with in the past (some on more than one purchase) and they were all attracted to the Lansing, MI area for it's affordability and steady cashflow. 

To answer some of your questions:

1. What should be the number first step after picking a market? I am looking at listings online, running my numbers. Many of them barely hit the "1% rule". - You should hop on a phone call with some agents in the market you are interested in and ask about the area, their experience, to run some numbers with you and then even do some virtual tours with you of some active listings. 

2. Assuming I purchased a property, how do I find renters? Do I lean 100% on the property manager to find renters? How do I know the vacancy rate / how long it took to find renters for comparable properties? This would be one of the most important inputs for "running your numbers". - Vacancy rate & rent amount all depends on the market and neighborhood you're in. Some of my clients manage their own rentals (even when they live in another state) and simply have a local handyman to do repairs and showings. My other clients rely 100% on a Property Manager. Platforms like Zillow, FB Marketplace, Avail, and other PM softwares do great with rental listings. 

3. Many suggest to "build a team" for out of state investor (e.g. realor, PM, handyman, etc). How do I go about doing this? Who is the most important member/first I should focus on? - You do this by exactly what you're doing here. By ASKING! You've already completed the first step. I'm may be biased (because I'm an agent), but a Realtor will be your most important team member to start off because we are usually the most networked and have Property Manager, Lender and Handyman recommendations for you already. 

I hope this helps! As always, I'd be more than happy to hop on a call with you to go more in depth on this topic if you'd like. 

- Troy 

@Ivan Castanon  I may be biased, but I recommend you look into the Lansing, MI market. Our average market price for a solid 1-4 unit rental is around the $150k - $175k range. Not a ton of appreciation, but cash flow is steady and easily attainable. 

I'm more than happy to have a call / Zoom with you to discuss a little more in depth! 

@Lolo Druff  Exactly what Jeff said above. I'm out of Lansing, MI and we are a great market for cash flowing, $150k - $200k type 2-4 unit properties. The tenant pools are great, as we are the State capital, we have two MAJOR hospitals, government jobs, large developments happening (out-of-state union workers), MSU, Lansing Community College, and so on. 

Our Brokerage runs the largest REI networking group in Lansing. I'd be more than happy to jump on a Zoom call / phone call with you to discuss more and answer any questions you have!

- Troy 

@Lauren Cutchen Absolutely! 

So, if you're looking to email your investor clients to try and raise funds, I'll have to warn you that it could very easily get your account shut down almost instantly with Mailchimp. 

We LOVED using them for our Wholesale deals, but with our FIRST private lender email, they sent us the following with zero warning...

**************************
"Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out. We appreciate your interest in MailChimp, however with ISPs and email filters becoming more and more sensitive, unfortunately, the risk associated with the account is too great for us to support sending. We do have to ask that a new vendor be found for your email delivery needs.

This isn't an issue of the legitimacy of your business. As a bulk-delivery service, we have to protect the deliverability of all our customers.

We appreciate your understanding in this matter."
**************************

After requesting a review and reversal of this twice, they landed us with a final blow of shutting our account down. We met ALL of the criteria for our private money lenders being 'Friends & Family' and they all have agreed to receive email communications from us. So, at the end of the day we have zero idea as to was truly caused this... 

- Troy