All Forum Posts by: William Strong

Welcome @Mike Eckerman,

I hope you enjoy bigger pockets as much as I do. There are quite a few Las Vegas investors on the site, and I think they also hold monthly meetings. I don't live in Vegas any more but own a single family rental off of Bradley and the 215.

What kinds of strategies are you focusing on in Las Vegas currently?

@Frank L. I don't have any experience with these types of letters, but I would check the grammar of your letter. When reading it through some things didn't sound right, this might scare people away. As an example:

"I can offer a fair ALL CASH for your property."

It should say " I can offer a fair ALL CASH offer for your property."

My grammar isn't good either, but I find it helps to have some one else double check my work.

Michael Dombrowski Check out this page:
https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/scra/

There should be some good information on it. You could also try to contact the legal office on the closest military base to you. I'm sure they could answer what ever questions you have.

Tim Stodieck You can use the VA loan to finance multiple properties up to the max benefit rate for your area. For example if you have a 400,000 limit in the Seattle area (just an example might be more or less) and you use 200,000 to finance a property than you still could use the other 200,000 for another property. However to use the VA loan you would have to be an owner occupant for a minimum amount of time before being able to purchase a second property. But being in the military if you PCS than you won't be held to the time requirements before buying another property. There will be some other details I'm sure when it comes to buying more than one home with a VA backed loan but I'm not aware of them. There might be a home buying course offered by your base's family readiness center or non-Air Force equivalent.

Welcome to BP Duncan Banks,

I'm new to REI myself but I recommend checking out the Ultimate Beginners Guide the link should be biggerpockets.com/UBG. And the BP podcasts under the learn tab.

As for reading check out http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/04/14/best-real-estate-books/

Good luck and if you have any questions just post them and someone should jump in.

Bill Gulley Fortunately for HfH my unit already has group that volunteers with them trough the unit. In the past 3 months since the group formed we have done 4 events each one during the duty day. Our unit is a tenant unit, so we don't fall under the chain of command that we are stationed at. And it is always great when we show up to the base awards and beat the units who are stationed here.

Dave Martel I never thought that I might meet some investors giving back but it makes sense. I did meet some interesting people and now that you mention it I wouldn't be surprised to see if not investors at least other people interested in REI.

James Vermillion I agree that charity work is always good and as you know the Air Force highly encourages it. Plus the free education doesn't hurt either.

Bill Gulley Thanks for all the great info! On the site yesterday we had about 7 volunteers none of us were very experienced, one guy from HfH was experienced I think he was the construction manager. I'm sure when we get further along into the process and more on the rebuild phase the more experienced people will be around more.

Being able to get on the site when it works with my schedule is a really big benefit of working with Habitat For Humanity. Also I can occasionally get off of work for volunteer events, which makes it even easier to get out and learn.

I agree that other investors may not want to show everything they know for fear of the competition. Have you experienced or seen this before?

I never thought of the possibility of being hired by a N/P i know that they must contract some things out but never thought about being the one who gets hired.

Paul Timmins Thanks, I didn't think about using classes offered at the hardware stores. Now that I think about it, I have seen a couple for tiling back splashes or laying flooring.

Dawn A. I've been wanting to volunteer with them for awhile now, but didn't follow through until my wife signed us up. I'm glad she did it was a lot of fun and we both enjoyed it. There are lots of groups that sign up, maybe your company could do a outing and volunteer one day during the week.

Jared Summit I agree that learning some thing new is always helpful. Having that experience yesterday made me want to write this post. I never thought of volunteering with Habitat as learning opportunity, now I can not only feel good about helping out a good cause but I'm also learning new information and skills.

Jenkins Ramon Yesterday was my first time but it definitely won't be my last. In Omaha they do a mix of rehabs and new construction. The house I worked at was a BoA foreclosure that they donated to Habitat. But in May they did a builders biltz week and constructed 9 new homes.

Billy Rogers I agree that working with a rehabber would be the best. But like you said having a full-time job makes that really hard. And at this point I'm really trying to learn as much as I can. I'm in the military and currently have one SFR in Las Vegas, but I live in Omaha, so I'm trying to decided if I want to continue in the Las Vegas market or Invest in what ever local market I get stationed at every few years.

I just finished working with Habitat For Humanity for the day on home demo. And I was wondering if any one has done this and thinks it provides some good experience.

Today we worked on demo and stripped the house down to the studs. The home was originally built in the early 1900's and there was tons of Knob and Tube wiring spliced right into current wiring before switches and outlets. I'm hoping to continue working on this same house and see the whole process through. And get some more experience.

If any Flippers or Rehabbers out in the BP world have any experience or anyone else for that matter. Do you think this is valuable experience for beginners such as my-self?