All Forum Posts by: Ana Coello

Hello @Account Closed! The ones I go to are the first Tuesday of the month at the norbeck country club at 8pm and the second Tuesday of the month at Denizens in silver spring at 6pm. Both are really great and very different. I would say try them both and see which style suits you best. If you have any questions you can always send me a message, I’m happy to help.

Hi @LaQuan Bates! Great to see you at the REA yesterday! There's another one (different group) in downtown silver spring next Tuesday at Denizen's (its a brewery/restaurant) starting at 6pm. It's hosted by @Kevin Leahy. Hope to see you there too!

I have heard Cozy works

@Latavia Banks I highly recommend Brandon Turner's book on Managing Rental Properties! He and his wife go through the entire process of renting out your property AND they give you all the forms to get you started. We used our county's room rental lease agreement, because the people at our local REA shared with us that the courts prefer those, and then supplemented with some of the documents from the book. Brandon and his wife recommend doing a phone interview first to check they meet your 'qualifying standards' (A LOT of people will call you to schedule viewings and they barely read your advertisement so it's easy to discern good candidates from not qualified ones), then showing the property and if you like them giving them the application because you will have to do a lot of work into checking all their information. Make sure you're taking notes on the phone interview and when you meet them in person so when they fill out the application everything matches. 

For knowing how much to charge, we looked at sites where our competitors would be: craigslist, trulia, realtor.com, etc. and compared our home and amenities to what they're offering. 

Good luck! 

Hi Sean! 
When you buy a house through conventional financing (via bank) they want to see your income from the last 2 years. i would say in your situation your suggestion of a partnership sounds like a better idea. Remember that if you’re asking someone for their money, you better be armed with all the knowledge possible and giving your time and other resources to the deal. You have to be in the know that you have a great responsibility now. 
Regarding employment and school, there is no one way about it. In my situation, I love school and learning and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. I currently keep my job while still working on my real estate journey because the financial responsibility is high and it works with my personality. But only you know what works for you. Take time to dig deep down and know what you love, what makes you happy.

@Daniel Haberkost How long did it take you initially to fill up all the rooms? We are doing just this and are finally screening tenants. 

Hey @Zach Wright, 

Yeah we have used the BP calculators exclusively but the books show you how to do the calculations by hand and explain how and why everything makes sense. It’s always good to know why things are important rather than just using the calculator but for us it saved us so much time because we could run the analysis and have reports for any house we were interested in in a matter of minutes. Then we would contact our real estate agent and get to see the property ASAP.

Yes, a REA is a real estate association. You should have a local real estate meeting near you and if you don’t have one you can start one! We found both of them searching on BP for local meet ups in our area but one of them is also on “meetup” and the other is also on Facebook. 

-Ana

Hello @Zach Wright!

Congratulations on graduating! My partner and I bought our first house hack/BRRR in May and are in the process of getting tenants in here now (we are renting 3 rooms). Ill try to share a bit of what I've learned through this process.

-You need cash. You need money for not only for the downpayment but also for closing costs (we had the seller cover most but we still had a tiny bit left), rehab (if you don't do a 203k loan) materials and labor, plus your living expenses (we barely cooked at the beginning since we spent every waking moment with workers and working in the house ourselves so we bought food everyday, we also didn't have a kitchen since we completely gutted the one that was here, and your responsibilities won't stop so you still have to pay credit cards, insurance, internet, etc)

-We became BP pro members to use the calculators to analyze deals and we used the heck out of them. We looked at houses in our targeted neighborhoods and ran numbers in different scenarios. What if your rehab goes over budget? Over time making your 'holding costs' higher? What if your rents are lower? What if your appraisal after the rehab is lower? And we finally decided on the house that we could work in all scenarios. In a house hack your profits will be lower when you live in the house, you might even be negative (like paying rent) when living in the house but should be in the positive when moving out. If you are in the negative, as long as you are less than if you were renting (lets say you rented an apartment for $2000 and now with the house hack you pay $500) then it's pretty positive in our book. 

-Go to local REAs, read, listen to podcasts, and ask questions. I have gone to 2 local REAs and have loved it! Ive met some amazing people doing similar things to me. Those monthly meetings have become a great resource of information for me. Ive also read the book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner, the book on Managing Rental Properties by Brandon Turner, the book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott, and the book on Flipping Houses by J Scott, among others like Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, etc. Reading from others who have done this already and from people who have a different insight on life is definitely something to look forward to every day to grow. 

I wish you the best in your journey. 

-Ana

@Essien Benjamin way to go! We just bought a house and are renovating it to house hack it. We bought the Brandon Turner book on managing rental properties and found it so helpful! We’ve also gone to two local REAs and they are such great resources! Going consistently is key as some days you may find more info more applicable to you than others. 

For rent we are thinking venmo, cashapp, bank (since it’s a house hack and the rent isn’t that much). For background and credit check I’m still between cozy and rentprep. 

Hope everything goes great and I’m happy to share any tiny bit of info you’d need. I’m just 2 steps ahead in this journey but I’ve studied the life out of it. 

Warm wishes,

Ana

@Mahad Fahieh Why do you say to not include utilities in the rent? How would you split the utilities if you don't include them since you are renting by the room? I am asking because I am in a similar position with a house under contract but considering house hacking while renting by the room.