All Forum Posts by: Amanda G.

So far I've had both a GC who owed a realtor a favor and a member of my local REI group walk through places with me. Super helpful. I learned to ask them what they would do if I was holding it as a rental vs. fixing it to flip. The GC assumed I would flip and gave me answers as though I was going to put in recessed can lights and granite in the kitchen. Still useful, but not what I needed.

Congrats on the great jump in value! This isn't a deal analysis question, it is more a life question. If you sold this place, where would you live?

Fortunately, you have lots of options. I'm sure I'm not going to come up with all of them.

One is to refinance your current place and use the cash out for investing. You can buy a lot of houses in other areas of the country with $700,000. The question will be if your rate of return on the new purchases makes the interest payment on your current place worthwhile.

A HELOC is also an option. Cheaper to set up, shorter loan period, interest rate changes with the market.

Both of those are assuming you want to own property. There are people here who also make a good living financing other people's work. That would be another option to use with either your cash out refi or HELOC. There is due diligence required, but it can be nice passive income.

I have not. My best advice is to find your local real estate investors group. You will learn much more from talking to local people who are actually doing what you want to do. I'm cheap, so I start with books and friends and only buy expert advice I can't get from them (like a lawyer to review my lease).

I am not sure what you are asking. Probably your best bet is to talk to a lender and see what they consider proof of funds. I'm guessing that you are talking either about a down payment or savings to allow a refinance. See what your local bank is willing to do.

A deal is only a deal if someone wants to buy it. Is there a market in your area for tear down properties? Maybe you could get a friendly realtor to run some comps for you to see if you could make your money back (worst case).

Wendy Patton's book is great. I'm a buy-and-hold strategy person, and I learned things I will use even without getting into actual leases

I think this is about the seller agreeing to take $16,800 off the agreed option price. Wendy Patton is the expert here on rent to own. Maybe she can tell you more. 

New to me. How many other quote have you gotten?

It looks like your utility expenses are pro forma guesses. Can you get the real numbers from the seller? If you are guessing vacancy of 20% on 20 units, that means that you are expecting about 4 units to be vacant, which means you would need to carry the utilities for those units.

It may be possible for you to have your cake and eat it, too. I haven't used it (yet) myself, but banks can offer you lines of credit for a percentage of your retirement account value. I've heard anything from 50- 75% of value. The annuities themselves might also allow loans against their value.

It might also be possible to move your funds into a self-directed IRA and buy real estate through that- although you can't touch it until retirement. BP has a lot of links to banks that do these accounts.

I hope you'll post what you decide to do.