Real Estate Tips from Our Learnings
Welcome back to Women Invest in Real Estate blog! We are so happy to have you. Our goal of this blog is to update on our current properties, give tips, and bring you into our world of learning. Let’s get started!
What is Amelia currently working on?
I just bought a property in West Des Moines, that is a duplex, but I didn't have to do a single thing to it. I hadn't bought a property since August of 2021. So I'm currently in the works of purchasing a dilapidated triplex in my small hometown. It needs pretty much a full gut and a lot of exterior work. I connected with that landlord looking to sell the property from someone who applied to live in one of my rental units! I figured out who the landlord was, reached out, asked if he had any other properties he was looking to sell, and started the conversation!
Excitingly he was interested in selling this other property. Once I took a look at his property, I waited about a week and submitted a seller finance offer to him. The offer was $48,000 on a five year term, five equal payments of around $9,600. And then obviously, we would have no early pre-payment penalty, because the plan with the property would be to fix it up and then burn it out. We would refinance into a conventional mortgage after all of the rehab was done. I actually just heard back from him yesterday, and he countered at $50,000, and he will take the old shed in the back down for me. So he came up $2,000 in price to include taking the shutdown.
After the $50,000 purchase price, the property will probably need around $50-$60,000 and rehab. And I think that we'll be able to refinance it, it'll probably appraise around $115-$120,000. And then a rent roll will be around $1,875.
Long-term or mid-term?
I’m loving walking through this with you guys! I think I'm going to do long-term just because it's a small town, so there is a little bit of a market for midterm rentals there. There's something to be said to be said for the stability of still having long term rentals, which makes me feel good at night. The other thing as well is that in my hometown and there's a major housing shortage, and so it feels good to be able to provide housing to the community.
I'm gonna partner with my parents on this, mainly because they have a line of credit through the bank that is at 6% interest. I’m going to use that to fund the downpayment and the rehab. So, essentially no money out of our pocket.
What is Grace currently working on?
We currently have an eight unit that we bought last December and we’ve been fixing up for six months DIY. We have rehabbed each unit as it has turned over and right now we have three units left, but they're empty. So we're like working on all three at once that will be midterms because this is so close to the hospital!
I've got the furniture ordered, which is such a fun part, and it's probably all on my deck right now. We'll also hire the painting out for $35 an hour, which I think is totally worth it and they do a good job. The last unit will be painted by the end of this week! And then the last thing we have to do is add new windows! This 4plex has around 40 windows, so we're actually taking several windows out so we can save around $500 a window that we don't replace. And because we pay for the utilities, since they're all midterm rentals, we get that efficiency back. Because we are removing some windows, we do have to mud in drywall, which takes three days for every window.
Real Estate Tips from Our Learnings
My parents purchased a home and have had several people knock on the door with cash on hand ready to move in. When people say things like, “Well, cash talks, cash talks, doesn't it? I have the cash right here. Can I move in?”
And in real estate that is such a red flag when you are renting out a property, people that want to pay you immediately and get in immediately. In our opinion, we are wondering what you are running from? Do you not want to do a background check? Do you not want me to contact your current landlord? What is going on behind the scenes?
It’s important to find the balance between someone who is not going to move out in four weeks time but also don’t want someone who is looking to move in day of. You want to make sure you have an applicant still go through the pre-application and figure out where they’re currently living, and the reason why they are looking for a new home.
Also, if you think for some reason that somebody might be faking a reference, be sure to cross check. You can look up on the assessor website and look up who actually owns the property they’re moving out of if you think that they’ve put a friend as a reference. That’s 100% a red flag.
How do I get involved with Women Invest in Real Estate?
After joining forces, we decided to make a monthly meetup for women in real estate. And that’s how WIIRE was born.
How can you get involved? If you’re looking for a community of empowered women in all stages of real estate, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re starting your journey we have several academies from our experiences that you can find here that include MTR Profit Academy, Property Management Academy, Running the Numbers, and several female real estate retreats a year where we bring women in real estate from across the country together for programming and a whole lot of fun!
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