Closed on my first property! Kalamazoo, MI 49004

[David Lauka]

Hi BP Community,

I wanted to share that I closed on my first property on May 19th and I couldn't be more excited! I purchased a 2 bedroom 1 bath SFH for $66,000. The property is basically ready to rent and I suspect that I will have my first tenants in for June. I am using a property manager (Haily with Jakobson Management, she's awesome) and she's got tenants lined up already. I suspect that I will probably cash flow about $130/month after setting aside money for future repairs.

To pay for the property I used funds from my HELOC to put a 20% down payment on the property, as I didn't want to pay the PMI insurance. I also lent money to a local real estate investor from my HELOC to help pay for this first property (6 month loan- 12% plus we will split any additional profits made after cash-out refinance). I plan on applying the funds from this loan as well as the first year's cash flow from renting the property to pay back the HELOC and use my own money to pay off whatever is remaining (likely 8 - 10k).

For my first property I didn't want to make a purchase that needs too much rehab work, as I was hoping to first get a feel for the mechanics of buying investment properties. In the future I will plan on using the BRRR strategy to purchase more properties but am not opposed to using my own funds if the deal makes sense.

I am thankful for the BP community and have been encouraged by the success story of others and hope my story can encourage anyone who is thinking about buying their first investment property.

If there are any investors in the greater Kalamazoo area who are interesting in selling or partnering on deals please feel free to connect with me.  Wishing everyone massive success in 2017,

Tanner Lauka