First Property! Questions Moving Forward

[Kyler Kieft]

Hi all, 

My name is Kyler and I recently purchased my first property in west Michigan! It’s a duplex that I plan to house hack. I just have a few questions now that the ball is rolling on my real-estate journey.

1. Do you have any recommendations/ is there a benefit to getting an additional loan for home repairs/  updates? It’s an old home and needs some tlc. Currently I have money saved for the immediate/ necessary renovations but I’ve considered snagging an additional loan to allow me to fully renovate the property. Would the equity gain of new siding, windows, utilities be worth the additional loan in your opinion? I plan to hold the property long term.

2. I’ve begun documenting and sorting my receipts with Stessa. Is there anything else I should consider starting now for the next tax season? Also, any recommendations for a tax professional in the Muskegon/ GR area?

3. In addition to a tax pro, are there any real estate attorney/ lawyers in the Muskegon/ GR area that you recommend? I’d love to start building a relationship with some local professionals to build my team.

Thankyou for reading through my long post and questions that have probably been answered elsewhere. I’m open to any other recommendations and advice for someone starting out. Especially documents, or things I should do early to prep for my experiences down the road. I’d also love to meet anyone local for lunch and pick their brain on real estate sometime too. I work in the restoration industry and write repair estimates for a living. Maybe I can provide insight on that for what I lack in investment experience!:)

Thanks again!

- Ky

[Jonathan Greene]

Congratulations on taking the leap on your first property. I think, as @Andrew Freed mentioned above, we need to know what this property needs. 2 and 3 are ancillary ( but important long-term) because the upkeep and quick development of the property and rent roll is most important. Are there long-term costs like end-of-life mechanicals that you need to account for? In general, I would always avoid taking a second loan for rehab. If that was what you needed to do, you should have utilized a renovation loan like 203k to bake those costs into one loan. Assess your immediate costs, then your next-up costs, see how much cash you have versus those, but make sure you check end-of-life items on hot water heaters, furnaces, electrical, HVAC, etc.