All Forum Posts by: Valerie Lane

@Rushi Bhalani. I love all the tools available for property analysis. I've seen others mention adding some functionality to make them more dynamic and I like that too. I usually sort of "hack" the rental calc to make my STR analysis work out for a yearly average.

The big thing I'm having trouble finding help with is something more geared toward development.  All of the tools hear are buying and selling/or renting existing buildings and property.  I'd love to see some developer tools as well.  I've made a few of my own pro-forma type tools and budget and building programs in excel, but the bigger pockets printouts look a lot better than what I can produce on my own.

Hey there,

so my husband was essentially forced to step away from his job of 17 years and we're using it as a catapult to dive into real estate development and investing. I own my own architecture firm but have, on paper, generally kept my profits pretty low for tax reasons. We have some start up capital, roughly 100k liquid and about 100k total equity in our home (so 70-75k theu HELOC or cash out refi). My questions are;

1) with the sudden absence of W2 income for my husband and nowhere near enough through my business, is it possible to obtain a conventional loan to purchase our first property?  
2) Will or can they look at the cash flow from the rental opportunity as income to make up for the gap in my husbands 9-5 income?  Or would we be better off bringing in a partner with the income/credit to qualify?

3)Can anyone share experience with how to start and develop relationships with banks/local lenders?  My plan was to just start calling and scheduling appointments with managers in my area and introducing myself and putting my vision out there to see who is receptive or may be willing to get on board.  This would be a non specific meeting just to get my name in their mouth and see what they offer.  Should I bring a business plan?  Some example pro formas? Tax records?  Or just casual, off the cuff with a nice little elevator pitch?

Thanks for any input

I posted a question with a brief introduction earlier.  Let me back up and make a proper hello.

I’m Valerie Lane.  Registered architect, LEED certified, licensed real estate salesperson.  I’ve been practicing architecture in Tucson and the surrounding areas for the past 10+ years.  I’ve worked on small and large  scale residential and commercial projects and have some great relationships with many of Southern Arizona's finest contractors, tradesmen, supply houses and developer/investors.

Recently I attained my real estate license and am slowly building my contacts and relationships in this world.  I have a passion for houses, for structures in general and I bring a unique outlook to my clients in real estate and architecture by combining these sets of knowledge. 

My husband recently stepped away from his 9-5 to help me realize my dream of becoming a mid-scale infill development company and investment co-op. We're both brand new to this world but have some fresh ideas and are ready to dive in. Our short term goals are to build and nurture relationships with like minded people in the community that want to add value to the neighborhoods we live in while building wealth and providing a solution to a missing middle housing and commercial area. We're analyzing properties right now with the idea of some immediate capital growth (fix/flip)(BRRRR), and long term looking at value add plays on existing structure or ground up on infill lots we can either buy or become land partners with the owners on.

My focus is building, design, buy/sell, project management.  My husband Lucas brings his 20 years of management experience with major aviation projects and will be focused on marketing, research, financial operations.

So hello to the BP community and we’ve found this site very helpful in getting started and also a great networking tool.

If you’re in the Tucson or southern AZ area and interested in getting together we’re looking for partners, investors, land and property opportunities.  We’re open for anything.

I'm a new investor. Lets get that out there first. I'm a real estate agent/architect and I am currently analyzing properties in the areas I have expertise in our community. The strategy I'm considering is combining a couple ideas. We currently live in a 3br/2ba house that could use a decent reno (50kish). We owe 200,000 and its worth about 290,000 currently. Its zoned R2 and I'm an architect so building a seperate unit (2br/1ba) on the property could be done. My thought is to buy a multi-family property if the right deal comes up and move to one unit and rent the rest(house-hack). At the same time I have a hard money lender that could fund the reno and value add to my current property, after which I could refi and pay that back. Now I own two multi family units instead of 1 SFR. If I can build the unit and reno existing house for 200k the numbers work out to 10% CoC roi. Any thoughts or experience in combining strategies and or using your own residence as a project? Thanks.