All Forum Posts by: Andrew Fowler

@Stephen Watt I looked at the most popular companies with a simple google search. Two companies I've looked into include SoFi and Earnest. They pretty much offer the lowest rates in the industry, offer flexibility in terms of payments, and are quite frankly easy to work with. At this current point, refinancing federal loans (the <5% ones) is pointless with these private lenders because they cannot beat the federal government rates offered for subsidized/unsubsidized stafford loans. However, I will be consolidating them into one payment (that is weighted depending on each loans interest rate). If you consolidate federal loans I believe you can lose your grace period. The two federal loans you are referring to are parent plus (I'm assuming) so I would look into refinancing those. You can beat 6.8% but you will need good credit (700+), however they look at a lot of factors.

@Eric Villanueva @Stephen Watt I really appreciate the detailed and thoughtful responses. I definitely see where each of you are coming from. I've been pretty busy finalizing things for my new job later this month, but to give you an update I'm currently working on refinancing and consolidating 3/4 of the private loans and its looking like I'm going to get a 1.5% rate reduction. I'm starting to notice that rates are climbing ever so slightly so if you both are still wanting to do that then I would get on it asap. If you need any help shoot me a message as I've been doing some shopping around.

I definitely agree with @Ryan Dressel and @Stephen Watt about the credit and DTI. My DTI is way too high so I've decided my future approach after reading all the responses is to take an initial safer approach before I go all-in to REI. That approach being to reduce my high interest, private loans ASAP while maintaining minimum monthly payments on the lower interest federal loans. During this process I'll be establishing a "better" credit history, freeing up cash flow to pool into an initial mortgage on an FHA-type duplex deal, and eliminate debt. I guess I forgot to mention that my housing is paid for by the company for the first year and half so this will be a great opportunity to attack the loans as much as possible.

Thanks for all the responses and I look forward to hearing about some of the other fresh college grads' future plans for REI.

@Steve Milford - How much work is involved to get a RE license and much is it to take the qualifying exams? Keep in mind I'm not pursuing this full-time, (at least for the near future) so I'm curious about the time commitment and the necessity to actually get my own license versus just using my own agent.

@Jeff Schechter@Account Closed - First off, it's nice to know there is someone out there with the same amount of debt and is interested in RE! (Even though student loan debt is a terrible thing). To answer your questions:

1. I'll be at 80k+/year W2, but the caveat is my housing will be completely paid for over the next 18 months (rotational program). This is a double-edged sword as I am required to be apart of their provided housing, which means I cannot take advantage of the 3.5% FHA loan. However, this is one less expense for me.

2. I am definitely open to a partner but I would probably just be able to help via equity. Since my RE experience is essentially zero, I'm not sure that a more senior RE investor would bring me on as I don't bring experience to the table. I'll send you a PM, there's more to this I'd like to discuss with you.

Thank you for the advice everyone!

@Adrien C. I'm currently a senior at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, IN. Finishing up my engineering education in May and super excited to jump start my career in REI asap. Thanks for the info though! I'll be sure to check it out when I'm around sometime in June.

Hi everyone,

As a college student who is graduating this upcoming May, I have a lot of student loans. When I say "a lot," I'm talking 100k... Since my loans vary from 4-7% interest I am strongly considering consolidating them since I have great credit for someone my age. However, does anyone have any advice as to whether or not I should just tackle these loans as fast as possible or consider stockpiling money (while making minimum payments on loans) to launch myself right into REI? I plan on doing a FHA loan/duplex type first investment. I'm assuming in the broad spectrum of things these interest rates are nothing compared to the return I could make via REI, I'm just worried about the rather large principal.

What are your thoughts? I would be especially interested if any younger folks here on BP are in a similar situation.

Thanks,

Andrew

Hello everyone! I started following BP a couple of days ago and am definitely interested in investing via RE in the future. I'm 22 and currently finishing up my last year of college (chemical engineering) and will be starting work down south in the Dallas-Texarkana area this summer. I'm fairly familiar with investing via stocks, I do a lot of dividend growth stocks, but this is my first exposure to RE! Although I'm probably roughly ~2-3 years away from buying my first property I plan on starting out with a duplex, while living in one of the units. I plan on doing the FHA 3.5% down loan and potentially refinancing later on. I may manage some properties remotely in the Northwest Indiana area with family equity partners once I become more experienced in RE. One of my long-term goals includes renting several small apartment complexes in order to create a solid passive income stream (nothing crazy!). I hope to meet as many of you as I can and start to contribute some of my experiences on the forums once my RE endeavors materialize!