Start now or wait???

[Dalton Ertz]

My wife and I are wanting to get into real estate investing as soon as possible. Our market is in Alaska in the Anchorage and surrounding areas, which is pretty hot right now along with the rest of the US. We both have good paying jobs and we're currently renting for 900/mo. Our short term goal is to owner-occupy a multi family property using an FHA loan.

My question is, would it be better for us to hop on a property that will basically break even or have negative cash flow, vs waiting to find the “right deal”?

Pros:

- gaining equity

- learning property management sooner than later

- the property would cash flow after we moved out in approx. 1 year and could rent the owner occcupied unit.

- we’ll save $900/mo which is our current rent expense

Cons/unknowns:

- market is obviously high

- negative cash flow until we move out and rent our unit

- not utilizing FHA benefits to the maximum

- the “right deal” may never come

Any input is appreciated!

[Bill B.]

I suggest you click on the magnifying glass at upper right and search for buy now or wait, wait for bubble to buy, etc etc… you’ll see 2000 posts over the last 10 years. I don’t know how many of them chose to wait, but so far they have made a life changing error by waiting. You could certainly reach out to 10 or 20 of them and find out. 

Maybe ask those that didn’t buy, what it would take now to start buying? A 10% drop back to January prices or a 20% drop back to 2020 prices? (Especially interesting question for people that didn’t buy 30% below 2020 prices 5 years ago.)

I assume you’ll find that 90% had made up their mind before asking complete strangers what they should do with their life and money.