First Long Distance Buy and Hold

[Susan Grinde]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $35,000
Cash invested: $60,000

Purchased a property with our son in Butte, MT that had two dwellings on it. Completely rehabbed the front dwelling (2bd, 1ba Folk Victorian miner's cottage) top to bottom and added 1/2 bath. Our son house-hacked for three years while attending Montana Tech. Completed rehab on the back dwelling (1bd, 1ba Craftsman cottage that had not been lived in for 40 years). The Folk Victorian stays rented to students and young families while the Craftsman cottage is for our use when we visit Butte.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

An investment property for our son to live in while he attended Montana Tech and house-hacked with one other student.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Local realtor

How did you finance this deal?

Cash

How did you add value to the deal?

Completely renovated both dwellings while adding a half bath to front house.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Rehabbing 100 year old homes takes a lot of time and effort. We did the work ourselves. Again, if you do not have the knowledge or energy to do your own rehabs, hire it out. It will be rent ready much faster.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Katey White with Berkshire-Hathaway continues to be our realtor.

[Susan Grinde]

Daniel. a conservative ARV is $85K. Carrying costs were $160/mo and it took us 3 months to renovate it before my son got a roommate to house-hack with. House-hacking is great if you have a college student. He managed the property and the rent covered all his monthly expenses with $150/month cash flow.

Since he has graduated, the home continues to be used as a rental for students and young families. Gross annual income is about $11,100, annual operating expenses is about $4,900 with a net operating income of $6,200 annually. ROI is 9.37%.

We are happy with our first long distance investment. We purchased it for our son to live in while going to school and now it continues to provide passive income as my husband nears retirement. We use the back house for our personal use, but are considering using it for a vacation rental. We would be able to add another $500 to our monthly cash flow. 

We are purchasing other properties in the area. We like the student rentals, but will include other single family homes for family rentals. I don't think we would have done much differently except for hire out more of the work that needed to be done. It was grueling. We also lived in the house while we worked on it. Not for the faint of heart. It was a good learning experience, though.