All Forum Posts by: Belén Cosenza

 I want to thank everyone for the much needed perspective. Maybe I’m just impatient but it’s because I’m new to the game…

 Hi Mark, this is in Cicero and I’ve always thought it was a good location which was part of why I bought it. It’s near a blue-line L stop and entrance to the highway.

 I'd definitely love to get to that point, it seems impossible to put together more than a few hundred bucks at a time before I have to use it. Maybe that's the cause of my anxiety. Right now it looks like a hamster wheel. I'm not sure whether I'm progressing.

 That does put it into perspective truly, but for a newbie on my first deal It's not very clear whether I'm headed the right way or if this is a train wreck I should jump from. My husband helped me set up a simple spreadsheet of the finances and it looks like it's working. This might boil down to me not keeping proper track of the finances rather than the performance of the building itself. I just got notice that the leases are renewing with an extra $50 each so the income will be $3300 now, against a mortgage payment of $2400. Everything in the middle seems what I'm not keeping good track off.

I now have to make roof repairs urgently because there's some cracks in the ceiling, water is coming in and we're just starting the mega raining season. I have more than enough available credit to finance that, the hope is that indeed month after month I have cashflow available to make a dent on the whole thing afterwards, which again on paper it looks like I do, but when it comes to the numbers in my accounts they always look way worse.

When I first bought it there was a big masonry repair. The units were pretty much turnkey but I had to fix the outside. Because the property did so well on paper I went for it thinking the cashflow could slowly pay it off but the truth is one way or the other something seems to eat that every month. The first year, 2020-2021 I had a tenant go delinquent for most of the pandemic. I had a horrible past year in which they double charged insurance and it caused my escrow to go bananas, and my payment went up $400. I only got to fix that this month. Now that that's settled, the net income is $3200 and the mortgage payment is $2400, but up to now I had been paying $2900, and the few hundred left always went somewhere like the utility bill or some repair. I made the mistake of getting a property manager, and I'm trying to rectify that before I incur more costs. 

So as it stands I get $3200 from rents. The mortgage on the building is now back to $2400. Both leases are up for renewal and I might be able to up that a bit. I've been trying to get washer and dryer in there so I can up the rents. 

Hi everyone, 

I own a two unit building. I don’t live in it anymore so both units are rented. It more or less breaks even every month. The estimated value according to the internet puts it somewhere around 350k, and I owe 265k on it. I got it on the low 3’s % in 2020. I have 30k in credit card debt, part me and part big masonry repairs made to the building when I got it. Sucks.

Basically I went in hoping to BRRR, but I called a traditional lender and apparently I can't refinance because I still owe too much and the loan can't be more than 245k. So in short, my money is trapped. No BRRR.

Does this mean I made a mistake? I can’t tell WHERE I am standing with all this. Did I do something wrong? Is this part of the process and gotta give it time where time is due? Or should I sell, pay my debt and pretty much break even and start from scratch? It wouldn’t even be from scratch because this time around I wouldn’t be able to get a home owners loan. Now I have a family and we can’t move. 

I feel so lost, what did I do wrong? Why can’t I refinance to grow the way they put it everywhere?