All Forum Posts by: Thomas Williamson

@Sean Blomquist this sounds like a great strategy, something I would like to incorporate myself. My question is, if a HML will only loan 75% of ARV, and the finished product amount is 100,000 ARV, and your purchase price is 80,000. Would you not have to put that amount down to satisfy the HML? The spread between the 75% and 80,000 purchase? I hope this make sense.

I'm asking to make sure I'm thinking this through correctly, and 5% is still much better than 20%.  We're in that same place now, that we could buy two more homes this year, but that would deplete our capital. 

Look forward to your response, thanks for the help.

@Jerry Padilla I just sent an e-mail over regarding the financing and cash out refinancing options you posted about.  Look forward to hearing from you.

You can do apartment investing with them if you're willing to shell out 10,000.  If you live close to one of their offices, they are okay, but out of state...save your money.  You will not get any benefits for 10,000.  Once you hand over the money, that's the last contact they will have with you.  You have to push them to get any information, about apartment deals, and even at the 10,000 price point the "mentorship" is very lacking.

@Jade S. There's not any to speak of in Gwinnett County.  I don't think the county wants much more M/F.  Norcross, and some cities within the county are overflowing with M/F, and the majority of them are not that spectacular.  The house I spoke about above eventually did rent to a great family in February 2015.  My rental criteria is a little stricter than some, so I suspect that's why it took a little longer.  One thing I've also noted in the 6 years we been investing, is the higher the rent, the less demand.  My properties that are in the 800 and 900 range rent within a week or so.  But, the ones I have above 1,000 take a little longer.

I have a handful of rentals in Newton county, and have been investing there for five years.  What I've found with Newton is that it's a great buy and hold market, but not so good for flips.  Unless you plan on doing some serious marketing to get properties EXTREMELY cheap, then Newton is not the best.  

The schools are not that good throughout the whole county, so I've found that most people won't pay the same retail prices for a flip that you would get in neighboring Walton or Gwinnett counties.  But I love the area for buy and holds, and you are correct the prices are starting to soar now, especially on properties north of I-20.

I can tell you from personal experience with Lifestyles Unlimited that as a member if you go to the members section and post a bad review about a vendor, it may get changed.  I posted a bad review about one of there vendors and it was changed to a more favorable review.  

I realized the shortcoming's of that organization and quickly cut ties with them.  

We put every one of our properties in an LLC after we purchase them. The banks don't care. We are still guaranteeing the loan with our personal names, but for liability reasons the property needs to be placed inside an LLC.

If you work with a community bank, they may even let you put the loan in the companies name as well, but I've only found small banks that will allow that.

We don't have any properties in our personal names, and if you didn't listen to last weeks podcast on asset protection, you may want to.  

Thinking that insurance alone will protect you is a really bad idea.

Good luck.

Not sure what part of Norcross, but that can be a very challenging area to say the least.  If your west of Buford Hwy you should be okay, east of Buford Hwy, good luck.  There's a lot of problem pockets all around P. Tree Corners as well as far as crime is concerned.  

Anyone that's viewed it mentioned the area or complex it's in as a problem?

I went to Austin last year and spent a week looking at multiple properties.  Properties that I wouldn't pay more than 60,000 in Atlanta, were going for 140,000 in Austin and Round Rock, really class C neighborhoods.  The rents couldn't even justify paying that much, 140,000 home rented for 1100 per month near round rock and other surrounding cities of Austin.  I agree it is an over priced market for most investors, but I do love the city and go there often because people will pay a premium to live there.  I think it's over generalizing to say the whole market is over valued, there's a lot to Austin that you can't appreciate until you spend time there.  It just may not make sense to invest there.

That being said, all of my capital is staying in Atlanta for the time being.

As others have already stated, more pics for sure. One thing I do for all of my properties is shoot a video tour of the entire house, inside and out. I post that to YouTube and gladly send that link to anyone who may be interested, and post the link in all the ads that are posted, whether it be on the MLS or on Cragslist etc.

I just rented out one that has been sitting for five months. It's in a great school district in Gwinnett, 4 B/R 2 Baths newly rehabbed. We kept lowering the rent from 1300.00 until it was at 1175.00 for a huge 4 BR. It just takes time and patience to get the right tenant. We had lots of interest, but none of the applicants fit what we were looking for. We finally found a great tenant (through another agent via MLS) in January. They moved in this past weekend. Be patient, it will rent