All Forum Posts by: Bill Sonzogni

Jessica W. what about a place like Morristown? You stated you and your partner are 25 yo - I had a lot of friends in that age group who used to live there who loved it. As far as pricing goes, I'm really not familiar with that market at all, so unfortunately i'm no help there. But I'd imagine they have a fairly large inventory of multi-families.

I actually wrote a blog last week talking about interest rates and was curious of others opinions. Currently, as someone looking to rehab and flip, it's not so much the rise in rates (which is inevitable), but the velocity in which they're moving up. My general thesis from the blog was, more so than history suggests, this current upswing in housing prices had definitely been more than helped along by incredibly loose monetary policy from the Fed.

I've been sending out mailers for a couple of months now an if I had to guess I'd say a gazillion lol. Honestly, my response rate has been pretty good I feel, but my audience "just aren't quite ready to sell yet" but promise me when they are I'm their first call. So I persevere and view it as building a potential pipeline of potential properties as I continue to try and source out deals for now. The price range I'm targeting I'd say is 500 - 750k depending upon the town and home.

I feel like Adam's message got a bit misconstrued here. I didn't perceive it at all as though he has a chip on his shoulder because his investor wore nice clothes and had an expensive car - his point was that this particular investor had a poor attitude towards his "employees" and showed very little respect for them. The nice clothes and high end car was simply providing more color to an anecdote he was sharing, and his message may have gotten a bit lost with that.

What I think he was getting at, and what we all seem to universally agree on, is treat the people you work with with respect and how you'd like to be treated and it will/should come back to you. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world and that doesn't always happen. However, if you agree to a job and you're compensated for it than you need to perform to the best of your abilities, as I'm sure Adam did in completing that project. Going forward though I'm just as confident Adam wouldn't help out that guy if he was in a jam. Essentially, it's all about building relationships, and Adam and Tony were just sharing what they look for from their perspective of contractors. That’s the way I interpreted it anyway.

@adam johnson and @tony reale these posts have been awesome, thank you guys so much. Adam, I loved the story about the guy ruining his shoes and pants! I can't stand people like that.

Tony it was really interesting hearing you put the types of contractors into tiers, it makes a lot of sense.

My whole reasoning and approach to working with contractors, or really anyone for that matter, is respect them and appreciate they're capable of doing something that I cannot, or at least not nearly as well. Using a sports metaphor here, I view them as a teammate that provides a crucial skill that compliments mine and helps us win.

However, there are times when your contractors don't seem to share that same mentality - I'm betting they fall into the 1st tier Tony laid out for us. My perspective with a situation like that is, "ok, you screwed me this time, great." But how much did you gain from it? I will never use you again, nobody I know will ever use you again, etc. Was it really worth it? Who knows?

Anyway thanks again guys, any tips I can take towards building long and mutually beneficial relationships with a contractor is worth it's weight in Gold. Much appreciated!

Hey Robin - welcome to BP! I'm new myself and so far I love it. Unfortunately I'm not in the NYC market, my focus is Northern NJ at this point. However, I recently helped out a friend with some analysis on the Woodside section of Queens though, I wouldn't mind passing it along if I can find it.

As far as KC goes, there's a fairly large development company I've become familiar with who not too long ago invested 100MM or so in multi-family rehab units in the New Hyde Park section there. From their past experience they tend to pick spots they feel are under valued, so maybe something to look into.

As far as student loans go all I can say is, ugh! It's like owing money to the mafia, once you're in there's no way out. The mob may be more forgiving for all I know - it's crazy.

Anyway, once again welcome and I look forward to meeting you Thursday!

@Steven Hamilton II thank you for verifying! I was pretty sure but I'm new here, last thing I want to do is be giving wrong advice! Stephanie Curtis perhaps what we suggested could be a good way to get you started. Not sure the capital you're looking for our your market though, so 50k may not suffice.

I might be wrong here, and if I am someone please advise. However, I believe you're allowed to take a loan out against your 401k in which you pay yourself back monthly with interest(you're paying yourself the interest). If you were to do that how are there restrictions on what you do with the money? It should be free and clear fo do as you choose. Perhaps that's a way to go about it. I believe you get 5 years to pay yourself back and you can borrow up to 50% of what's in the 401k but no more than $50k.

Hi Kevin -

Welcome to the site, my man! I'm new myself (literally joined a couple of days ago). Just a heads up, I found a post and was talking to a few people on here in the NYC area and we plan on meeting up August 15th if you're around. Just something to keep in mind.

Hi Everyone - this sounds great, please count me in for the 15th. I'm looking forward to it.