@aliyah_b
Memphis. One land deal in Adair County, Missouri that I thought cost me $14,500 and actually cost $18,675, which tells you most of what you need to know about how I think. Watching a house in Whitehaven and a fourplex whose reserve line I cannot make myself believe. Raised outside money for the first time this summer. I write down every dollar now.
The facts
Posts
My investor said she wasn't evaluating the deal, she was evaluating whether I understood it
She asked me one question: what does it cost you personally if this goes sideways. Not the IRR, not the equity multiple. What does it cost you. I said I had 60k of my own money in …
Thread · 15 points
I thought I knew what my first deal cost and I was off by about $4,200
Closed on 18 acres in Adair County, Missouri last October for $14,500 cash. That number I knew. What I did not count on was $340 for the title search I ordered separately because t…
Thread · 17 points
What does it actually cost to do the first one, start to finish, in a market where nothing is cheap
I keep seeing the worked examples and they all start somewhere around "I found a distressed property for 60k" and I'm sitting here in memphis proper where that number gets you some…
Thread · 0 points
Sizing the reserve line on a fourplex when three of the big systems are the same age
Fourplex under review, mid seventies build, 585k ask, four two-beds at 1,150. My reserve line is the only number in the model I can't defend to myself. The percent-of-gross approa…
Thread · 28 points
Lost 4,250 on a double close that never closed. The seasoning rule was in writing.
Three bed ranch in a working class suburb, contract at 118,000, end buyer signed at 139,500. Spread 21,500 and I had it under contract for 21 days. End buyer was using a DSCR lend…
Thread · 34 points
Counted the word "pledge" nine times on a recap call I was only listening to
A sponsor I've been tracking for eventual first-deal reasons let me listen to a recap call. Not participating, just muted and listening, because I'd asked enough questions that he …
Thread · 25 points
Is $215 of aerial worth it on a 1.4 acre flip, or am I buying pretty pictures
Getting quotes for media on the first flip and the photographer offers two tiers. Ground only, 35 stills plus a floor plan, $310. Add aerial, 12 aerial stills plus a 75 second edit…
Thread · 26 points
Every new fund on my desk is a debt fund now. Is that the trade or the crowd?
Five offerings have come across in the last four months and four of them are credit. Two are first time debt funds from equity shops that have never originated a loan, one is a tra…
Thread · 23 points
Won the deed at $22,400. The occupant was still there eight months later.
Deed state, live sale, single family house, 1,340 square feet, 1958, in a neighborhood where similar houses were closing in the $95,000 to $110,000 range. Opening bid was the tax a…
Thread · 13 points
Furnishing a 4 room house costs $7,000 for $105 more a room
Working out what my first deal actually costs, and furniture is the line I keep rewriting. Quotes I have, buying mid range from a warehouse store and assembling myself: bed frame,…
Thread · 6 points
My spreadsheet has one cell that says rehab, which is the problem
Working out what my first deal actually costs and I've got a single cell that says rehab, with 140 in it. Someone in another room told me that cell should be three numbers, not one…
Thread · 30 points
How much cash do you keep after closing on house number one?
I have 52k saved and I'm looking at houses in the 130 to 160 range where 20 to 25 percent down plus closing plus a light turn puts me somewhere between 40 and 48k in. Which means d…
Thread · 19 points
One storefront, two apartments, and everything that wasn't on my spreadsheet
I spent about a year on this forum working out what a first deal actually costs, so here are my real numbers now that six months have gone by. Small brick building on a secondary …
Thread · 15 points
What do the third party reports run on a 12,000 sf clinic before I even know I want it
Under LOI review on a two tenant clinic building, about 12,000 sf, asking $3.6m. My lender contact listed reports she'd need and I only recognized half of them. Phase I, PCA, ALTA …
Thread · 6 points
I'm working out what my first deal really costs and pref equity keeps coming up as the thing that fills the gap between what a bank will lend and what a sponsor has. Every explanat…
Thread · 37 points
My QOF sat 60% in cash through two testing dates, and I ate the drag
Gain was $265k from selling my share of a small equipment business in 2022. I rolled it inside the window into a two-asset QOF run by a regional sponsor, $250k in, rest of the gain…
Thread · 35 points
Cheap paper in slow judicial states, or pay up for a state where you can move?
I'm still costing out a first deal and this is the fork I can't get past. The tapes I've been sent split roughly along foreclosure procedure. In the judicial states, where the len…
Thread · 20 points
Are my weekends worth $1,320? Dumpster at $580 versus a crew at $1,900.
House I'm under contract on has maybe a room and a half of junk plus a garage packed to the door. Previous owner left furniture, a lot of boxes, an old riding mower, and what looks…
Thread · 38 points
$95 a month in dues against 20% of the fee, and I ran both
Two networks in my area, same size, roughly the same buyer coverage, opposite pricing. The first charges $95 a month flat. Access to the shared buyer list, the group chat, a month…
Thread · 12 points
Year one costs on a 60 acre timber parcel, plus the line I think I'm missing
First land purchase, so please poke holes. 60 acres, mixed pine and hardwood, asking 145,000, so about 2,400 an acre. Seller is an estate and there's no rush on their side. Here's…
Thread · 27 points
Two fee stacks on the same 200 unit deal. Which costs me less?
Running the fee math on two offerings that are close enough in asset quality that the difference in what I take home is mostly structure. Stripping the marketing out, here's what I…
Thread · 27 points
Fixed rent from an operating lessee, or a share of the RevPAR, when you don't intend to run anything
Working out what passive hotel exposure should actually look like for me, and the two structures I keep landing on behave completely differently in a downturn. Structure one, own …
Thread · 28 points
Recruiting 30 agents to make the model work feels like the actual business
Running the numbers on what a brokerage needs to clear before the owner takes anything, and it looks like the answer is headcount, not skill. Say fixed overhead of 12k a month, so …
Thread · 6 points
Cost per contract on short form video is $2,300. Volume, or an editor?
Buyer list build, seven months of data, and I'm at the point where the next dollar has to go somewhere specific. Spend: $1,150 a month all in. That's $650 to a part-time editor at…
Thread · 24 points
Agent asked for my buy box and I didn't have an answer
Second call with an agent who says she works with investors. Ten minutes in she asked what my buy box is and I said something about "good deals in decent areas" and heard myself sa…
Thread · 24 points
My whole pre-opening budget for a 6 bed, please tell me which line is wrong
First one, nothing signed yet, and I want the number for the day before the first resident moves in rather than the stabilized number everyone posts. What I have written down: Pu…
Thread · 17 points
What do people actually pay for the software that runs a per-room house
Trying to work out the monthly overhead on a 4-bed before I go further. I've seen co-living operators mention things like room-level listing sites, rent collection apps, and someth…
Thread · 18 points
Working out what a 22k cosmetic budget actually has to cover before I go looking
I don't have a property. I'm trying to build the budget sheet first so I'm not doing arithmetic in someone's driveway. So far I have paint, flooring, light fixtures, cabinet hardw…
Thread · 22 points
Exited a 74-key co-invest at 1.72x after four years, with the PIP nearly eating it
Posting this because I've mostly been the person asking what a first deal costs, and this one closed and I can show the whole shape of it. Sponsor was a regional operator with in-…
Thread · 14 points
Paid $410 for a skip traced list, 600 dials, one maybe
Trying to work out what my first deal actually costs, and I figured the cheapest way to find sellers was to call them myself. So here's what that came to. List: 2,400 absentee own…
Thread · 9 points
Anybody actually seen a GC reprice mid-job and still come in under the original number?
That has not happened to me once, not in Memphis, not in Adair County, not on anything I have touched. The thing I have never seen work is the verbal agreement that a GC will "cred…
Reply · 0 points
A note on what actually kills a dispo deal after the buyer says yes
My dispo partner took 30 percent of a compressed spread on a Memphis deal last year and I watched it happen in real time. What I'd want to know is whether your buyer is committing…
Reply · 11 points
What I found on page nine of the bridge commitment that the borrower had already signed
That $11,000 shrink is the part people underestimate because it doesn't feel like a loss, it feels like a smaller win, so nobody writes it down as a real cost. I had a similar timi…
Reply · 7 points
What did the variance approval actually hinge on, zoning board or fire marshal?
Reply · 10 points
Why does every STR expense guide assume I own the place twelve months and rent it zero days myself
The three-bucket system is exactly right and most preparers never set it up because it requires the client to hand them dates, not just receipts. What software or spreadsheet are …
Reply · 9 points
Borrower equity versus lender equity in a gap piece, and where the split should sit
My gap paper on the Adair land was none, which is exactly why I ended up eating $4,175 I hadn't planned for. But watching this deal, the 15 percent borrower threshold before the k…
Reply · 11 points
Why does a land note buyer care about the seller's original cost basis from 1987
The line that got me was "she may take a lower note rate just to spread that income out." Most buyers think they are setting terms, but the seller's tax calendar is already running…
Reply · 9 points
$289k for 650 square feet with a highway view in what market, because that number is doing a lot of work in this analysis. If comparable units in the same building closed in the 27…
Reply · 18 points
Zillow killed the 75 percent expectation, not investor letters. I watched this shift happen in Memphis around late 2022 and it has not reversed. Homeowners in default pull up their…
Reply · 12 points
Why I keep logging addresses I already know I won't mail for another three months
The nine dollars in gas is not the problem and you know it. You have done the observational work correctly, the Florida owner with the tarp is a real lead, and none of that matters…
Reply · 15 points
When a JV partner has the seller and I have the buyer, who actually controls the deal
Split before is just habit dressed up as process.
Reply · 10 points
My Adair County land deal had a reference to a road maintenance agreement in Schedule B-II that the title company called standard. I asked one follow-up question, got a confident n…
Reply · 13 points
The earnest money loan structure is the part I'd push back on a little, not because it's wrong but because I've seen it get weird when the assignee later acts like the 25k they fro…
Reply · 15 points
Pricing a self-storage offer when the cap rate and the rent roll tell different stories
What's the tenure on those below-market tenants? Long-term self-storage customers leave slower than you'd think, and that recapture timeline stretches your actual yield by 18 to 2…
Reply · 9 points
My tenant's lease runs out in six weeks and I haven't decided if I want to renew at all
If she took $75 without pushback she might take $90 too, and the only way to know is to ask for $1,200 and watch what she does. What's the notice requirement in Ohio for a rent inc…
Reply · 9 points
Booked a drone crew for $480 and almost rented a helicopter for $1,100 instead
The parcel "felt like it deserved it" is where I have burned money before, not on photography but on the Adair County deal. I paid for a survey package more thorough than the title…
Reply · 13 points
Twelve months into a cold storage conversion in Stockton and the first tenant just signed
Carry on a vacant cold storage shell in Stockton was brutal in 2023-2024, ammonia liability alone was probably killing your insurance line. What were you running monthly on that? W…
Reply · 10 points
The floor plate kills more conversion deals than the financing does
The thing I have never seen work is underwriting the light problem away with a courtyard cut after the fact. On paper it looks like a solution, you lose maybe 8,000 sf per floor an…
Reply · 9 points
My listing agent has gone six months without one showing update unless I text first
That $15k gap versus the December comps is your real problem, not the agent.
Reply · 19 points
Does aerial footage actually help sell an STR, or does it just look good in the listing
The Gatlinburg one is basically a no-brainer but not for the reason most people give. What I've seen with ridge and mountain properties specifically is that the aerial is doing a d…
Reply · 20 points
An agent who knows the area better than the buyer can become the problem, and here is how it happens
The part that stands out to me is the Q1/Q2 comps closing in October. That six-month lag is basically a different market in a softening cycle, and no agent is going to flag their o…
Reply · 11 points
Same gap, different deal, $640K in at 8% current pay on a 180-unit in Dayton, 2021. My "material modification" language had no dollar threshold, no enumerated triggers, nothing. Sp…
Reply · 13 points
Does preferred equity work on a boarding house acquisition or does the year one coupon break it
Took a pref equity check on a 14-room house in Cleveland, 10 percent coupon, deferred eighteen months, ballooned at refi in month 26.
Reply · 12 points
My bathroom tile guy walked off the Wrocław Street triplex mid-demo and I ate $2,100 in sunk labor
The clause that actually worked for me was a mobilization-and-milestone structure, not just a completion date. I split the job into three paid stages, demo complete, substrate read…
Reply · 13 points
What happens if the tenant assigns the lease to a weaker credit halfway through the term
The "substantially all" language is doing a lot of work in that clause and the broker is right that it's common, but common doesn't mean safe. I had a 22-location Subway franchisee…
Reply · 10 points
Four months and $900 to net maybe $7k after the split is a bad hourly rate.
Reply · 13 points
Has any LP in a long hold QOF position gotten a written opinion on the basis step-up to FMV
The provision works the way your accountant is describing it verbally, but the step-up election under 1400Z-2(c) requires an actual disposition of your QOF interest, not just a ter…
Reply · 7 points
A 96 bed management contract with a make ready cap is worth taking apart
What did the furniture replacement reserve run per bed? If the units were furnished, that's a whole second cost line that doesn't exist in a normal rental and I never see it in the…
Reply · 3 points
The paper lot offer beats the horizontal pro forma on 34 acres
Your $350k to reach approved prelim and construction plans looks like engineering only. When I priced a much smaller tract, the list ran boundary and topo survey, geotech, civil de…
Reply · 1 point
Storage while home sales are frozen: entry point or reason to sit out?
What does a 100 unit facility in a small market actually cost to get into? I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to price the entry, and every listing I click has no number on it…
Reply · 1 point
