All Forum Posts by: Anthony Z.

When listening to the BP podcasts I often hear about different tax benefits such as:

• Itemized deductions related to acquiring/managing properties
• Home depreciation tax write off

Do these things lower the tax bracket of the income I get on my W4? Or do they lower the tax bracket of only capital gains derived from the real-estate itself? Can real-estate tax deductions be applied to the income I receive from my full-time job?

Hey there @Neil Evangelista,

Thanks for your feedback. I am looking in South Bay; San Jose seems to have some good houses in the 600k range.

I don't follow your logic here. Why would it be difficult to time a downturn?

I was listening to the BP podcast and Brandon mentioned that a lot of people have the misconception that people who flip houses also rehab them every time, but in actuality you don't need to rehab a house to flip it. 

How do you profit from flipping a house without rehabbing?

I want to buy a 2 bedroom house in the bay area and live in one room while renting the other room out. However, the volatility of the housing market makes me very concerned that I am buying at the wrong time. 

On one side the market in Northern California is very frothy and it is always a bad idea to buy high. On the other hand it's also bad to wait because there is never a 'right' time. Until I take some kind of action I will just be sitting on the side lines paying 3k in rent.

Is it better to wait for the market to rebound to a lower price or to try to find a good deal now?

I always hear it is important to have multiple exit strategies. I am kind of confused by this, because isn't there only 3 exit strategies?

1) Rent

2) Sell

3) Go Bankrupt

What other options are there to get rid of a property besides these?

So should you never buy a property unless it is substantially less than the listing price? What is the real estate agents role in all this? Are you discussing price points with them? Or should you discuss it directly with the seller through them?

Finally, Is it harder to whittle the price down in more competitive markets such as Manhattan? 

I appreciate your immediate and descriptive feedback, thanks!

I understand the notion of negotiating the listed price down, but the hypothetical home being purchased in this article is being bought for 50k less than the listed price. Is it normal to be able to negotiate a house down to 3/4ths the listing price? Or is this an extreme example? Can you please direct me to more resources on such negotiation tactics?

Thanks!

The BiggerPockets blog post on HouseHacking states that:

How come the author wrote that 'you don't pay full price'? Is that assuming you have negotiated it down? Or is it because of some other technicality? The article isn't really clear as to why you don't pay full price. 

Thanks!

Hey there,

I am moving to Manhattan and I wanted to know if there are any caveats in regards to buying an apartment in Manhattan. I intend to purchase an apartment in Manhattan with 3 bedrooms in the price range of 300k - 500k. According to Zillow there are actually many properties in the city that meet this criteria. I would assume the core principles of house hacking are the same everywhere, but Manhattan seems like such a unique area because everything is in such high demand. I just was wondering if anyone had advice on performing house hacking in the big city.

Additionally, a friend of mine is also interested in becoming a partner and joining me in this venture. If he did, then the apartment we could afford which essentially double. Is house hacking with a friend recommended? 

Thanks,

- Anthony

Hello there,

I am brand new to real estate and I am going through the free course that BiggerPockets provides. I was going through Module 5: How to Find Real Estate Deals and it teaches various rules such as the 2% test, the 50% rule, and the 70% rule. 

My question is, if everybody is using these same rules of thumb then how is there any property to purchase? Doesn't a property that passes all these rules indicate that the seller is doing something wrong? And if everybody is using the same rules then wouldn't everybody be trying to buy the same properties?