All Forum Posts by: Assaf Furman

@Justin B. That's beside the point. The argument here is whether a primary residence is an investment or not, and when @Johnson H. claimed there couldn't be someone with regrets on owning a home in the bay area, I chimed in saying it depends on your other financial decisions - meaning whether you do something smart with this equity or not. Since he didn't he regretted buying that house in the first place. Like him there are families who still lose their homes back to the banks and by that foregoing any of the appreciation the houses had gained since they bought them.

In the past two years I've been door knocking to get leads, and from time to time people open up and tell me their story. This one is an elderly guy who relocated to San Jose from Boston and helped his four kids by buying them cars, paying for their schools and down payments for their homes (one of which was foreclosed)- all from repeated cash out refi's on his own home. They've all been living in the east coast since school and rarely come to visit, and he's left to pay the mortgage payments and high cost of living without them helping him (the way he said it it felt more like he was too ashamed to ask). When I asked him why wouldn't he move there, he said it's not an option for him at this point, yet he should have done it years ago and have his kids sort out their expenses.

Not all people understand the meaning of the word asset, let alone creatively utilizing current assets to fund high performing ones to create a margin of profit. Those that do can proudly call their home an investment.

 I actually do! appreciation works in your favor only when you know how to use it in conjunction with your other financial decisions. 

On the other hand, Saying a primary residence is not an investment is like saying sleeping pills aren't harmful; it all depends on how you use it, if that's the right type for you, where do you buy it etc.

Even though the -$31000 annual cashflow it may be a good investment if it answers your risk tolerance and financial goals, as well as your alternative housing expenses. There's another parameter you should consider when house hacking and that is taxes, which can make or brake whatever it is you want to achieve. This is probably the best place to start understanding the issue.

As for the fully rented option, there's the time factor and renovations needed to bring the property to its full market rent potential; how long would you estimate it would take to do it? How much money is needed to make the units worthy of this rent? These two can make a big difference to the profitability of the deal, especially when you have sec8 tenants.

Hope it helps, good luck! 

Received a quote for about $500 per 3 months, liability coverage up to $100k.

Is this reasonable?

May I ask for recommendations for insurance providers?

@Vincent Chen

The short answer is that you should seek professional legal advice. 

In my opinion you shouldn't have problem buying rentals under your name and buy umbrella insurance to cover yourself, same as managing it yourself if you want. You may have problems getting a mortgage since you're not considered a permanent resident but that's a different issue. 

I do need to stress this is an opinion and you must verify this with the right sources.

CRM / project management softwares. Podio, SugarCRM, Zoho etc. 

One of these and a cloud storage platform should suffice and you can integrate the two

@Ben Leybovich You brought up property expenses, depreciation and the recommended holding time as a result. There are other factors as to why you'd might want to hold a property for a shorter time - all that is beside the point that I was trying to make.

Would you care to explain why it's only good for non-appreciating markets?

@Mike Allen How do you plan on financing the purchase?

Off-market properties are almost always sold for cash.  

@Mike Hanneman @Thomas S.