Last night we held one of our twice-monthly MWI Broker Roundtables.

We get together to review our deals, discuss issues that come up during "deal evaluation," and get a little education in the "use change" process. We had about twenty-five dedicated and interested Realtors in attendance.

Some of the deals discussed were a twenty-three unit apartment building in Houston that one of our members bought for only $235,000.00 and a single family house on a large lot zoned for multiple units.

The 23 unit property had a single electric meter and A/C units shared by several apartments. All in all, it lost money. But the purchase price left room for improvements to be done to the property and still be in it for a good number. The buyers intend to keep the units for income.

The SFR on the large lot led to a discussion of the "value" of the "dirt." Even though the land could carry 10 units, the purchase price of $875,000.00 was too high. The average condo in that particular area sells for $275,000.00 to $300,000.00. It was determined that the cost of the dirt can't exceed 25% of the selling price of the finished product. Less would be better.

Another team was making a mini-dorm out of a single family in the college area. That sparked a discussion of what the city intended to do about mini-dorms.

We had a "lesson" on divvying up the work and divvying up the profits. We have an Excel template available to us to make this a fairly easy process. I think I'll do an article on this process in the near future.

Then I had an opportunity to describe my experience with ActiveRain. Several members of the group gave me their cards so that I could send them an invitation to join AR. I sent seven this morning. We'll see what comes of it.