Patience is not my strong suit. Trust!
I had this article written about 2 months ago and wasn’t able to post it just now because this deal took way longer than I had anticipated. I love to tell people that Real Estate is easy (and it is) but things never go smoothly. This was still a good deal even if it went slower than I would have liked. A test of my patience for sure.
NINJA EDIT – This deal took longer than I expected TWICE so I’ve actually written it 3 seperate times, updating it with each approach. So I apologize if it’s worded messy, I tried to tighten it up.
Bidding was very fast on this deal. My offer was accepted almost immediately, which does not happen often so instead of excitement my first thought was “oops! I overpaid”. Regardless, I trusted my team accepted the offer anyway and moved forward. We got in the house and quickly found the house was lipstick ugly, but the core was in GREAT shape.
It had a new roof, new HVAC, and new water heater. Thanks for the free CapEx! Also, the house is in a good area, on a corner lot, and it’s a bit larger than I usually buy. These are all great adds that I didn’t really expect. To top all that out, while we are doing the rehab we had potential renters coming up regularly to ask about when it would be ready. This is the best possible situation to be in! We asked for all the money, closed with a great tenant, and moved to refi.
EASY
Before pictures
(After pictures are at the bottom!)
This is my ACTUAL HUD-1
Why do I post my HUD-1?
- Because it’s important to know how it looks for Delayed Finance.
- Not many other people do it and I like being transparent where other people are not. This gives me strength
- Most people have never seen a HUD-1 (Settlement statement) and they are going to be part of 99% of all your real estate transactions. You need to be familiar with it
Delayed finance allows me to refinance my properties with 30 year loans in just a few short weeks. This one took a bit over 3 months, but some I’ve done in less than 9 weeks! The rule for delayed finance is 75% of LTV or 100% of HUD whichever is LOWER. so I put my insurance and rehab on the HUD when I can finance them both out, with no seasoning.
EASY
The numbers
Purchase – $49,900
Rehab – $15,000
Ancillary costs – $1,135
Total Cost (Line 120) – $66,319
Rent – $950
Price-to-rent ratio – 1.43%
NOI @ 45% expense ratio – $617.5
Debt service – $367
Cash flow – $250
ARV – $ 85,000
Total loan amount $63,750
Equity created – $21,250
Mistakes
Every time I get a new property, my property manager and I have the same fight: “What to ask in rent”. Now, it’s important that everyone understands that no matter how close you and your manager are there are fundamental asymmetries in the outflow of rental income. Specifically, if I ask $1000 in rent for this place the buying pool goes way down because it’s high rent for this property. It might be possible, but it’s harder because market rent is probably closer to 900-950. It’s in MY best interest to ask for $1000 because I want ALL THE MONEY, ALL THE TIME, but the property manager has to work a lot harder and deal with a lot more potential tenants to get that extra $50 but in the end, they only receive 10% of that (colloquially known as five bucks). This is not a critique of my property manager who is amazing, this is just important for everyone to know when going through these processes, where do efficient leverages lie for all parties.
So this property rented much slower than it should have because I was just trying to extract too much from the property. As soon as we lowered the price to $950 it was filled. My property manager originally thought we should ask 900-950, and I should have listened to him. It’s my nature to seek out conflict though, so battling with him is always worth it.
Appraisal on this house came in a bit low. This is never great news to hear, but it does happen. My last property came in HIGH, and this one came in low, it’s important not to base your whole deal on ARV coming in perfect because it might not. This was only about 5k low, but that means I’m leaving about $3,000 in the deal. Now that’s still in equity and I didn’t lose any money, it’s hard to complain about making 21 grand instead of 25 BUT all these mistakes compound. I’ve done this 8 times now and still make mistakes if you’re doing your first do not assume things will go perfectly. It’s not even the catastrophic error that gets you, it’s the 3-4 10% mistakes that you make which add up. Many of them are unavoidable so expect to have errors, just build them into your risk mitigation and you’ll be good!
Thinking about the future
The market I invest in has been saturated recently with new investors so buying has become much more difficult. So much so that I’m looking to invest in a different strategy going forward, I’ll still buy 1-2 more to get my 10 max mortgages, then I think I need to start looking at the next challenge. This SFR strategy has worked well for me, but I’m really starting to feel it’s inefficiency to scale. I also don’t want to keep doing the same process forever and end up with 30-40 single family units. I think I have the talent and ability to take down a 30-40 unit multifamily complex instead, or maybe buy a commercial retail building and start a brokerage? Regardless, the point of buying these SFR was to create my retirement, and protect my financial downside so I’m not forced to work every day, and I’ve pretty much accomplished that. I do not want to be stagnant, nor do I want to settle for small ambitions, so I’m starting to think about how I can further stretch my potential.
After pictures
Narrative
Thank you for reading!
I know it’s been a while since I’ve been able to post one of these. I’ve made my readers suffer through book reviews and lame monthly updates. The good news is I already have the next property lined up so by the time this one is posted I’ll be working on the next. More updates to come!
12 Responses
Hello Alex, your interview on BiggerPockets was incredible. It gave a lot of insight and you were very transparent with your strategy and numbers. I’m glad I caught it, I’ve listened to a lot of episodes as well. I wish you luck in your journey and transition into multi family.
You made my whole day dude, THANK YOU. Let me know if I can ever help you 😉
I’ve recently started a website, the info you provide on this website has helped me greatly. Thanks for all of your time & work. “Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.” by Marcus Tullius Cicero.
I assume you pay cash and then do the refi? Also I assume I could use hard money the same way?
you can use hard money to buy and rehab, but you can’t use hard money for delayed finance. You’ll have to wait the 6 months
Hey Alex, awesome write-up. It’s cool to see what you’re up to and how you make these deals happen.
I’ve been focused mostly on SFR investing but I want to get into multifamily investing as well since it seems so much more scalable and it’s a challenge I want to take on. Best of luck with it. I’m sure it’ll be interesting to learn from what you’re doing and try to apply that in my own investments.
Yeah I’m working towards multifamily as well. Once I have some progress to post I’ll happily share it and teach what I know!
Awesome post.
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Hey Alex, I figured this is a good place to ask this question, I’m having my own ( test of patience ) right now trying to find a lender who will do a refi of 100% of HUD1.
Most will do 75% LTV…with a 6 month seasoning of coarse, but I have sent dozens of emails and make tons of phone calls and the closest I got was 80% of costs.
Any suggestions for finding the lenders that will do this?
How long did it take you to find a lender that would do 100% of HUD?
Thanks! — Joel
Great site! I have been consuming real estate content and podcasts for months and LOVE your attitude. I am about 2-3 weeks away from getting started with my first deal. If you ever find yourself looking in Oklahoma City would love to connect. (1 vote here for starting the brokerage!)
Thank you Evan!
Let me know if I can help you with the first one. Happy to do what I can if you need it. Don’t be shy to reach out.
good luck my dude!