New Member From Bowie, Maryland

[Remus Phillips]

Hello.  I am new to BP.  I am here to gather all the insight and information I can, find new friends, and most importantly, learn how to reach my goal of purchasing 10 properties in the next 2-3 years for cash flow.  I am looking at purchasing in Florida and Washington.  I think most homes in Maryland may be out of my price range.  I have $50,000 to start investing.

Hope to hear from fellow investors soon!

[Nicole A.]

Unless you are purchasing a home via FHA (which means it'll be owner occupied/primary residence), I'm not sure what lenders anywhere will offer less than 20% down.

What specific towns were you looking at? If you're looking in expensive places such as Columbia, Bethesda, and the like, $200K doesn't get you far. Same if you're looking only at places such as Fells Point or the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.

Let me share one of my properties. It is probably rated as a C class neighborhood, but you said you're looking for cash flow, so obviously we will have a tough time finding cash flow in A or even B neighborhoods.

Here's my monthly costs, not including vacancies and repairs:

$586 mortgage & interest
$166 taxes
$34 water
$46 insurance
--------------------------------
$832 total bills per month

$1,650 total rental income per month
*$818 total gross cash flow per month (before any possible vacancies and/or repairs)

Purchase price of $98,000 (which looking back, I could have got for less but this was my first property and wasn't quite as good at negotiating).  This property came with tenants in place and no renovation immediately needed.

This is an example and this property is located in Dundalk, MD.

I purchased another property in Dundalk for $70K and it was my first one needing work. I put $10K into it to get it rent ready AND to make it lead free.

I don't know a *whole* lot about the Tampa area but have been slowly researching it as I too would like to one day pick up some properties there. Tampa almost seems like another version of the DMV. There are tons of expensive places there, but there are also very affordable pockets.

Also, regarding closing costs, make your offers slightly higher but ask the seller to pay all closing costs. Estimate the closing costs will be roughly 5% of the purchase/listing price, so offer a little more on top of the property price number, and that the seller cover all closing costs. In the end, it washed out and is less money out of pocket.