Real Estate Investing Success: Michael Oghigian
Michael Oghigian, our Preferred Membership customer, has an exponential amount of success to his name. As a law student turned businessman and real estate investor, Michael is the epitome of a person who has mastered many crafts—and who has turned those talents into lucrative businesses.
House flipping tips from Michael Ohigian's success
He is currently President of Avatar Foods, an extremely successful food and distribution company, while also managing his very impressive real estate investment portfolio, running LVHomebuyers.com.
Michael’s journey and advice is invaluable because it illustrates a profound ability to balance many things at once and still deliver high-end results. (He has hundreds of real estate investment properties he’s flipped or rented to his name after all!) His business prowess alone makes him an excellent person to emulate a career after.
We were able to chat with Michael to get insight into his career and gather some of the secrets to his success, how he started, and how Kiavi has been a great partner to him.
Getting started
Michael Oghigian hails from Nevada and started his real estate investing career 19 years ago. Though when he first started his career, becoming an investor wasn’t what he originally had his sights set on.
Michael was studying to become a lawyer and one summer, he didn’t get the internship he wanted. This ended up being a blessing in disguise as it opened him up to new opportunities. His brother told him about Ron LeGrand and all the success he had achieved as a real estate entrepreneur.
Michael and his brother decided to try their hand in the industry after getting inspired from Mr. LeGrand. He figured that it was a good opportunity to garner some additional experience in a field that was different than law.
He approached the new endeavor with an outlook that showcased his work ethic. "Like with everything in life, you put in your best effort in order to be successful," he says.
The two worked hard that summer and the first project was good enough to let Michael see the upside of real estate investing—particularly working for himself. So he decided to redirect his goals.
"After all, there are a lot of lawyers out there and owning my own business had a larger upside potential than becoming a lawyer did. So I took the leap and dove into real estate investing."
"After all, there are a lot of lawyers out there and owning my own business had a larger upside potential than becoming a lawyer did. So I took the leap and dove into real estate investing."
-Michael Oghigian
Committing to real estate investing
The first six years of his career, Michael worked with his brother and in the last 10 years, he began to partner with his wife. The business has grown exponentially as he flips up to six houses at a time and employs a team of workers, contractors, and handymen. Depending on volume, they sometimes have up to 3 crews in circulation working on projects.
A typical project for Michael is a $200K property, single-family residence with $20K-$30K of renovations. The conditions are usually fair to poor with an after-repair value usually about $265K-$275K. The larger the project, the more time consuming the management.
Again, that hasn’t stopped his business from growing since he has been investing in hundreds of properties as both a flipper and a landlord.
Partnering with Kiavi
Michael was first referred to Kiavi from a fellow investor who was a friend. Prior to partnering with Kiavi, he usually used his own money to buy homes. However, this sometimes limited his ability when good deals would present themselves. He had also previously used hard money loans at a much higher interest rate than Kiavi’s offerings whenever the deals were better suited to that strategy in the past.
Kiavi, Michael has found, was an excellent other option to hard money loans because, as he puts it, "they can fund quickly and offer a very good rate compared to hard money."
Since becoming a Kiavi customer, he has done many homes with both our purchase and rental refinance programs and has been very happy with the service and results.
"Kiavi is always there if you need them. They are a great back up if you have lots of your own money, as well. They can close quickly and are very responsive to your needs."
"Kiavi is always there if you need them. They are a great back up if you have lots of your own money, as well. They can close quickly and are very responsive to your needs."
-Michael Oghigian
To get an idea of the fantastic work Michael does, check out some of his properties below:
5049 Wright View Dr, Las Vegas NV 89120
Sold: $313,000
4 bds • 3 ba • 2,827 sqft
1300 Jessica Ave, Las Vegas NV 89104
Sold: $255,000
3 bds • 2 ba • 1,520 sqft
Thank you Michael for sharing part of your house flipping journey with us!
Kiavi is proud to have customers like Michael, who are excellent at what they do and find value in their partnership with us. Our customers come from all different backgrounds and experience levels and their unique perspectives are what makes the real estate investing community so fulfilling to be a part of.