My Frst Property & House Hack

[Anthony Zayas]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Philadelphia.

Purchase price: $70,000
Cash invested: $30,000

My first and current house-hack property done while I was a university student. Purchased for 70,000, now worth 125,000 all while I pay nothing towards the mortgage.

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

I was attending university while spending $500 in rent within the area. After doing math, I realized I could be allocated that money to a mortgage instead, and get a roommate to foot the bill. This lead me to researching potential properties. Resulting in a door to door campaign looking for individuals willing to sell their property.

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

After doing research and driving by the area to map current and possibly future developments. I narrowed down my focus to a few streets. One day, me and my mother made paper flyers with my mother's personal information. From a phycological standpoint, we figured having a woman go door to door dropping flyers off would be less intimidating. This strategy resulted in us coming into contact with an individual who owned multiple properties in the area and wanted to cash-out on one of them.

How did you finance this deal?

This deal was financed with an investment loan at 5.2%.

What was the outcome?

After living and fixing up the property over the course of 3 years. The property was now appraised at $125,000. I ended up taking out a conventional loan of $118,000 at 3.125% to purchase the property from my mother. This resulted in us having ~70,000 in equity which me and my mother used to purchase another property for 70,000 cash. This property is currently in rehab phase.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

The whole process of living in the property has taught me various skills from laying down wood flooring, to installing light fixtures and tile work. While I did pay individuals to do most of the work within the property. I also learned to just have a go-at-it attitude, as YouTube is a valuable resource.

[Dave Spooner]

This is awesome @Anthony Zayas! Great job taking initiative, and focusing on long-term investment benefits while still in college. If you can pay towards a mortgage instead of paying rent toward a place you don't own, that's almost always the way to go. Keep up the great work!