All Forum Posts by: Andy Jenkins

It depends on your access to cash. If you'd prefer to be free and clear sooner, you can put more down, but you may as well over pay your payments if that's your goal. Most people want to keep that cash for, well, anything; beer, fast cars, a new roof, quartz countertops- what I call "real expenses". You use your real everyday money on it.  The purchase price is wrapped up in a loan, so your "real expenses" there are the payment, not the total cost. You can always overpay the loan, reducing the 30 years and total interest paid significantly.

Would I pay more down payment than I had to? No. Mortgage rates are crazy low. I'd use that money for something else.

Which part of the Salt Lake valley did you settle on?

Hi Cole,

When do you move to town, and what brings you here?

West Valley and West Jordan do OK for cashflow. Rose Park has been an open secret for a couple of years now, so hasn't the opportunities there were. I used to live there and you'd always see young kids getting into wholesaling door knocking. Poplar Grove and Glendale are a few years behind Rose Park in terms of prices, so you'd have more luck there. Lots of people call Poplar Grove and Fairgrounds "Rose Park", but technically they're different, and you see it in the prices.

Not many things on the East Side cash flow, so house hack, or look to appreciation, to get your value. Investors I know in SLC consider $100 per door good cash flow.

As Kody said, things are pretty expensive, and we haven't seen any sort of Covid slump. In the last 2 weeks I've had 4 under contract; my listing for $10,000 over asking (Millcreek), three buyers- one at asking price in Herriman, one for $6,000 over in Downtown SLC (multiple offers), and one for $10,000 over in Sandy (multiple offers). Things-have-not-slowed!

The best opportunity I see right now is in nasty properties and a live in flip &/or house hacking a duplex or multi. Multi units in The Avenues have been sitting around for ages (no cash flow, expensive). I see some other "Fixers" on the MLS that several months ago would have been gone in a flash, but are sticking around longer now.

Ogden has much lower buy ins, available multis and a good flow of renters from the College and Hill Air Force Base. BRRRR actually works there. Not so much in Greater SLC.

Please reach out with any questions,

Andy

Hi Mitchell, Utah has a pretty standard REPC (Real Estate Purchase Contract), but most builders have their own version of it. It’s usually written by their attorney to protect their interests, as the standard one is pretty good for buyers! Send me a PM and we can see what the situation entails. I’m NOT an attorney, and NOT qualified to give legal advice. I can let you know if there are differences from the standard form.

@Edward Agadjanian

Are the rents lower than the mortgage payment?

Hi Armando, Welcome to BP and The Salt Lake Valley! Will you be at Hill Air Force Base? If you're looking to buy in Ogden there are some great opportunities at a much lower purchase price than Salt Lake City. Rents are also lower though.

House hacking is a great strategy! I'm doing it myself! I've been analyzing multi units in Ogden for another client, so I'd be happy to show you what's currently happening locally. When do you arrive?

Hi Elyan,

There's a lot of good advice here. Do you currently own a house, or will this be your first purchase? @Michael Haynes makes a great great point. Get one to live in and fix it up. If that's a duplex or more, great. Fix up one unit, then rent it out and move into the crappy unit and fix that up too. I'm guilty of wanting the moon on a stick NOW! but slowly and surely works great too. I bought a starter home in Rose Park using an amazing agent. Then I got my Realtor license. I live-in-flipped the starter home and now have a duplex in the Avenues. We wanted to live there, and this is a cheaper way of doing it. Find where you want to live and go for it! Ogden, Tampa, wherever!

Do you have other skills/ job opportunities you plan to use for income, or are you planning to go into investing with both feet? How are you going to finance your purchase?

@Ibrahim Hughes

Salt Lake City- Today we put in an asking price offer with a $10k escalation clause and lost out to multiple offers. I think we were only competing with two other buyers, not the usual 7!

Ogden is much cheaper to buy in than SLC- it's much smaller, and rents are lower. There's a pretty constant flow of renters provided by the nearby Hill Air Force Base, students at Weber State University, or the locals with their enthusiasm for breeding. Great skiing nearby at Powder Mountain and Snow Basin if that's your thing. There's more of a nightlife than Provo... but you're still in (now 5% abv) UT. I wanted to buy there a couple of years back and my mrs vetoed it!

I don't know much about the other places.

@Deneuve B.

2 video/ FaceTime showings in the last week. Should be sending an offer today once lender gives us the thumbs up.