Beginning of my Real Estate Investing Career

[Brian Morreale]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $178,600

Cash invested: $6,160

First Investment Purchase. Bought as a house hack strategy on an FHA loan. Moved out after 3 years and now both sides are rented. Currently loan includes PMI but should be able to be removed by late 2020.

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

Grew up around real estate and intrigued by letting someone else pay for me to live in something I own.

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

MLS

How did you finance this deal?

FHA 30 year Fixed. With rents and deposits due on a 10/5 close date, i only needed to bring $2600 to closing.

How did you add value to the deal?

Required some cosmetic updates so i used that opportunity to put some higher quality products into the rentals.

What was the outcome?

Still own the property today

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Ended up using the listing agent as my agent. She was less than cooperative in my opinion and although she kept things by the book, I never felt like she was on my side.

If you are looking for as little money down as possible, I learned that scheduling your closing date as early in the month as possible on a property with rented units will translate those rents and deposits right to the bottom line of what dollar value is needed to bring to the close. In my case, i was owed around $3500 in rents and deposits for the remained of the month (close on the 5th of month) which reduced my closing costs from $6100 down to $2600.

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

No