All Forum Posts by: Abraham Saldana

It comes down to personal preference:  Do you want to be debt free, earning solid rental income, that will remain relatively stable, and is safe?  Or do you want to leverage yourself, especially now when money is super cheap to come by?  And by leveraging properties you can will experience growth through both cash flow AND equity.   However, it comes with risks.  Its really like looking at the stock market...do you invest in Treasury bonds and get a safe, dependable but small return...or do you go big, YOLO and Wall Street Bets that next GME Stock?  Haha.  Not exactly the same, but I think you get my jist of it.  It comes down to personal risk averseness.  

Hey Congrats!  Im actually just starting to do the same thing in Southern Pines. Would love to hear some of your advice and feedback!

@Justin Melendez hey man, welcome to the club!  Im a military member too and have 6 rentals throughout the Southern Pines / Durham area.  

Our goals sound pretty similar.  I am working toward supplementing my military pension when I get out in 9 years or so, so that I can do / work wherever I want.

I have found that one of the hardest parts about being in real estate is not finding deals, so much as it is raising the money to buy the deals that I want to do (Buy and Hold), especially since Buy and Hold is pretty capital intensive.   But I have started dabbling in flipping (ive got a pretty good team in Southern Pines) and ive found that a good mix for me is 2 x Flips then 1x buy and Hold.  Rinse and repeat.   Id love to do more around here (and especially in Durham), but you know how busy the military keeps you.

Either way, welcome man and hit me up anytime!

Biggest thing will be the location and type of tenant you'll get.  I'm assuming it's a class c/d neighborhood so the biggest challenger will be finding renters who will take care of your property while paying on time.  If you do, then you'll be sitting pretty!

hey man, thanks for the info!

Hi all,

Like the post says, I am looking to purchase my 6th buy and hold property, but with the rules for a traditional mortgage (6 months PITI per property + 20% down), I do not have the funds (130K) to qualify for a typical mortgage. I have about 30-35% equity on average in each home, but I do not want to do a refinance since my rates are all extremely low. Ive looked into Hard money, but the usefulness of that is only in purchasing the house, I would then have to get a regular loan to transfer it over. Ive also looked into HELOC's, but in general, I would rather just finance a mortgage. So any non-traditional thoughts are appreciated!

A little about my situation: I invest primarily in Single Family Type A/A- neighborhoods, so even though I only own 5 properties, they are each worth 300K+, so buying newer properties has always been a slow process.  I find that investing in A/A- neighborhoods makes self managing much easier and the homes are always rented.  

I want to expand, but needing 130K in liquid assets is burdensome, and will only get more difficult the more properties I own. Thanks for any/ all help ya'll!

Hey man,

Fellow military guy here.  The biggest thing for you is going to be the following:

1. SAVE...SAVE....SAVE.  While your at basic and literally getting everything paid for, your monthly expenses should be negligible.  You wont be making a lot initially, but your opportunity to save your money and not waste it like all the other privates on hookers, booze and tattoos will set you on the right path. 

2.  Within your first year you should be able to save between 7-10K.  Do this for 2-3 years and by the time you are an E-5 (eligible to live off post, unless you are married which is a whole other conversation ) you should have a good nest egg of between 20-30K that you will be able to use as your reserve fund.

3.  When you finally do invest, go for multi-family (2-5 doors) near where you will be posted (being close is key, especially since you will be really busy in the military) that you can self manage.  Purchase, collect BAH (which depending on where you live should be around an additional 1K) and then your "tenets" in the other attached homes will be paying your mortgage while you now can save the entire BAH per month.  Now in effect you can double the amount you save per year, saving near 15-20K a year.  Allowing you to purchase your next property much sooner.

4.  Rinse, repeat, profit

Hey thanks for the reminder...ill try and make it out there!

@Bob Green I have around 300K of equity in the 5  properties with a purchase price of 750K for the apartments.  

@Douglass Benson thats awesome!  Best of luck with the future purchase!

Thanks guys for the info!