All Forum Posts by: Andrew Rogers

Ah I had not heard of LexisNexis before. I'll definitely check it out so thank you! 

I've been looking at out-of-state investing and have narrowed down to a few cities I'd be interested in and have started to try and narrow down neighborhoods. One of the first things I'm looking at is crime rates, however, in my research, I've sometimes gotten somewhat conflicting results and I'm not sure which ones to believe. So simply:

What are the best tools for researching these things? And how should I research this?

I've mostly been looking it up by zip code but if there's a better way to do this, any feedback is appreciated!

So I've been doing my research on investing out of state and I'm very new to all this. Across all the information out there about out of state investing, an important thing is to find a good lender and was wondering what types of lenders tend to work best for people. I tried searching on here but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for at least not with the keywords I was searching. I know a lot of this depends on the individual lender themselves but I want to get maybe just some general overviews.

Obviously, there's the big banks out there though, from what I can tell, you won't necessarily get the best rates with them and their main advantage seeming to be that their size means they're everywhere. I'd like to know about the alternatives. Specifically, I'd like to know what types of lenders you've used for out of state investing, both good and bad experiences. How have local banks or credit unions been? Hard money isn't something I would necessarily want to use, but how has that been for people? Was it your only option? Did it just make more sense for that deal? If you did use one of the big banks, how did that go? Would you have preferred a more local lender? 

For any example, I'd like to know what kind of real estate you were buying, your strategy for it, how many lenders you contacted (can just say "a lot" or "a few" if that makes it easier), what type of lender you ended up going with and why, and your experience using them. But any sort of general information would be helpful!

I appreciate all the responses everyone! I'll definitely have to look more into how I should set these up for myself.

So I'm still in the learning process of real estate investing and this question randomly came to me. For those of you who currently have property and have (rental) income generating from it, do you have separate bank accounts for the income/expenses on those properties? I imagine everyone has their own personal checking and savings and was wondering if people have any additional accounts for these. Especially if your real estate investments/business are not your full-time job. And regardless of the answer, what is your reasoning for doing things the way you do in regards to your accounts? And an additional question if anyone just does it through their normal accounts, how do you keep track of the expenses and things like capex reserves on your properties?

Lastly, what should a new investor consider when deciding how to set up their accounts? I know it'll depend on everyone's own situation but any aspects I can look at, especially if they're not immediately obvious, would be useful to know.

Ah I didn't take into account the potential income of the rental too. I'll definitely have to consider all the numbers. Thank you for pointing that out!

Ok that makes sense. Sounds like they'd likely only worry if I was taking on several within a very short period of time, more so. Thank you for the help!

Ok so this may seem really obvious to most people, but I know close to nothing about financing/lending/mortgages. I never learned anything about it in school, never asked my parents, or anything so it's a huge gap in my knowledge and I'm not sure how to look this up. Whenever I listen to the BP podcast or anyting like it and the topic turns to this subject, a lot of it goes right over my head.

To expand on the question in the title: if I get a mortgage for one (investment) property and a couple years later want to buy another property, will banks and other lenders likely look at something like my debt-income ratio and not want to lend to me on another mortgage?

And to expand even more, it would likely be better to explain my plan with some specific examples. I currently still live with my parents for a low amount of rent so have no real estate currently myself. I plan to move out and have my own place (potentially house hacking) within the next 3 or so years. That's still a way's away and I'd like to have at least one property before that time. I'm not in any "rush" to just get something since real estate investing is still very new to me, but I don't want to just wait when I could potentially start sooner.

To throw some numbers out there to make things more tangible, let's say next year I get a single-family home or small duplex investment property for $150,000 with 20% down on a standard mortgage and I make the payments every month with no issues. Then a year or two later, I want to get my place and it'd be a $200,000 house also with 20% down. Would I likely be turned down for that second loan because I still owe a lot on the first? I know it'll likely also depend on the specific lender(s) I'm using, but for most places, would this be an issue at all? I don't want to give away too much personal info but I make more than the US average annual salary but less than 6 figures, have quite a bit in savings, have no other debt, and my credit score is over 700 if that helps as well.

I'll definitely look more into that and thank you! 

I was definitely very pleasently surprised to find basically a "one stop shop" resource in BiggerPockets. It's makes things so much easier than having to consolidate from too many resources. And thanks for the welcome!