All Forum Posts by: Anthony Thompson

@Juan Lopez I'd suggest going to one of the upcoming RIREIG meetings, it's an excellent place to make new friends, build relationships with potential partners/lenders/mentors/etc. They usually meet the 3rd Thursday of the month in Warwick and the upcoming meeting info is always posted on the RIREIG website.

This is definitely a complicated area. It seems that while there are Federal rules allowing crowdfunding, it's up to states to adopt rules allowing it also, and so far only 30 states have done so (and, not surprisingly, Rhode Island isn't one of them).

However it's not clear what the difference is between "intrastate" funding rules and within-state-only rules; maybe there's a special case for a RI company getting funding from RI investors only, if that would apply. That first article says:

Marc, there are also some "peer to peer" lending companies like Lending Club which may be available to you, though I've read mixed reviews of them online.

Here are a couple of articles I bookmarked on the topic: Peer-to-peer lending: From the people, for the people; and Wall Street's Takeover Of Peer-to-Peer Lending Almost Complete.

Also, the Mister Money Mustache forums seem to have some good commentary on specific companies such as Lending Club (since MMM was an early user/proponent of it - not sure where he stands on it now).

Ilario, welcome to Bigger Pockets! You've definitely come to the right place to start building relationships, and I'm glad you're planning to attend the next RIREIG meeting too.

Be sure to say hi to me and other BP folks when you see us there, and I look forward to hearing any specific questions you have in the future :)

P.s. - In case you haven't heard about it, the Bigger Pockets Podcast has a lot of great information in a very entertaining format, too.

Matt, I haven't found a bank or credit union who will lend knowing that your down payment is itself another loan, especially for residential properties, but of course I'd love to see someone else chime in saying they have.

In that situation I've usually had to use private money for some of the down payment, but when the source of financing is the seller her/himself it's usually on the HUD which is where the lender finds/has the issue.

Many times I've had to do a two-step process, where I put down the money for the down payment to purchase it, make some minor improvements and then refinance to get it back out.

But often in those cases I'm buying with private money to start with which is a higher rate but lets me move quickly. So I have a double incentive to refinance with a bank loan, to lower the mortgage rate AND get some/all of my down payment money back.

I get the impression there is a lot of rehabbing and (hand in hand) a lot of private lending going on these days, so I think with enough searching you can probably find a lender who can meet your desired LTV, but it likely won't be a bank which means the rate has to let the deal still work.

Matt, welcome to Bigger Pockets! There's a lot of great information and education here, including the educational and entertaining podcast.

It's wonderful that you already attended a RI Real Estate Investor Group (RIREIG) meeting and I look forward to seeing you at future meetings too.

One idea that came to me at that meeting, was to try to connect people who haven't done any deals, with people who have recently done (or are doing now) their first deal.

So if you can find someone like that, I'd suggest taking them out for coffee, etc. You can look here on BP or maybe make a short announcement at the next RIREIG meeting during the member announcement section after the beginner's session.

I'm trying to hook up a couple of folks like that right now in fact, and I hope they can be mutually beneficial for each other, and maybe the same will be true for you.

Please keep us updated on your progress and let us know when you have questions of course!

Eric, for basic property research my go-to site is https://ripropinfo.com since it has links to all the city & town tax assessor databases, land evidence records, etc.

If you're looking to buy the property tax information for the entire state, it might be available somewhere but you'd have to check with commercial list brokers - I've never found one.

Usually you don't want the entire database, you want to target certain properties/people in that database, which is exactly what commercial list brokers such as Melissa Data and others are all about. I believe there are many forum posts about list brokers on BP if that's of interest to you.

As far as trying to get a data dump from the tax assessors themselves, I've tried many times over the years and it's usually an exercise in frustration and non-results. Years ago in the mid-2000s I managed to get (after about 6 months of repeated efforts) a CD of data from Providence but it was only some assessor data, and a few years ago I tried again and they gave me even less information and this time it was in PDF, not Excel as it had been in the 2000s. And still quixotic quest to obtain it ("Oh, you want to talk to Sue." "OK, where's Sue?" "Oh she's out to lunch, come back in a few hours" "OK..." etc.)

I'm not bashing the folks in Providence or any other municipality, they're doing the best they can, but they're subject to information overload like the rest of us etc.

This is related to the fact that just about everything in RI is done on the city/town level, rather than the county level, so instead of one "standard" way of doing things over a large geographic area, you have 39 (sometimes radically) different ways of doing things. The only good thing I can say is, at least it stymies the competition a bit, just because it does require more effort :)

I hope this helps, and if you do find the Holy Grail of all tax assessor data in RI in easily parse-able form (Excel or plain text), please let us know!

@Michael OConnor, I have a lot of strategies, and sometimes use "BRRR", yes. My basic question is, why should I do a particular deal instead of another one? What's the upside?

Because real estate is involved (i.e., can be a PITA), I generally don't get into deals unless I can see some kind of built-in profit to compensate for the time/effort involved. The classic example is buying below market value (instant equity) but there are others.

I find that in real estate "the devil is in the details" so it's good to have a lot of tools in the toolbox and be flexible. A deal that doesn't make sense one year might be perfect the next (e.g., if you have 1031 exchange funds you're looking to close with).

@Aleksandra U. this seems like an OK deal, largely because of the amount you're putting down (44K) which makes the mortgage payments affordable. If you were only putting 3% down I would say the #s would be way too tight.

Assuming the "50% rule" for expenses (I ignore seller-provided expense #s unless I'm in the mood for a good laugh), and that the $1100 rent is reasonable for the area & condition (is it?), I get a 6.5% cap rate, 1.34 debt service coverage ratio and 22% cash on cash - with the assumption that you'll need to spend $10,000 on roof and other repairs in the 1st year. You'll need to budget for that, either by having extra cash on hand or by resolving not to take any money out of the property at all for the first year or two.

All this assumes that the property is conveniently located for you and that you like the area in general (that it's trending flat or in the right direction).

@David Blue It's true that the average buyer/investor has access to ACTIVE listings, and current asking prices, through realtor.com and riliving.com but agents with MLS access have access to information the general public can't see about those listings, such as days on market and the previous listing history of the same property.

And besides more information on active listings, the huge thing is that agents with MLS access have the ability to look at SOLD listings which is the main part of establishing values through the comparable sales method (the primary method for single families and these days, arguably the primary method for multis as well).

I know many investors who become agents with no intention of ever listing a property, but merely so they can "pull their own comps" and establish a decent ARV before putting an offer in on a property.

I'm not saying that's what you / every investor need to do. If you have a good relationship with an agent, especially a newer/hungry agent, you can probably have them do your comps for you (say, in exchange for a promise to list anything you end up buying with them, when it comes time to sell).