All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Gonzales

What would you do?

I'm grateful for the learning experience and sometimes the best teacher is LIFE. I'm no PRO and real estate is still my main path for success. What is this about... My SFH rental is bleeding money. Monthly I owe $4700 and the actual amount I receive is close to 3100 which leaves me to seal the deal at the end of the month.

Mortgage- $644,000

Market value $655,000 ish

After everything is complete I would approx need to bring 40-50k to close

I've reached out with hopes of landing something and to which direction I should take to try and squeeze this house for every. Thankfully there was a glimmer of hope! Thank you Angela Goossens!!!

BP is where is began for me but not where it will end! This chapter will end and from it I will take value lessons to never repeat.

 I'm not sure where I seen this but hopefully it helps someone down the road... You may not have the answers when you needed them and when they would have made the difference. However, the knowledge you gained and struggle you felt and the restless nights planning out your next day, only to see the sunrise through your window will soon fade. 

This is what life is about right? Calculated risks.

Much love BP,

Ben

 For sure! Hindsight…. always a great reminder of my mistakes! This is the only investment home that’s bleeding.

 Hey Dennis!

Thank brother! I was actually thinking the samething... Getting in the door for travel nurse's is interesting for sure. So renting by the room is probably going to be my best bet until the market irons back out. I'd love to see the way you market your MTR's and i'd definetly take a slice of humble pie to hear you out! 

Ben

 Angela,

Yes I would love to connect and see how I can be of any assistance. I have tons of families looking to rent my property in Washington but simply can NOT because the numbers for a traditional LTR dont work. I'd love to get some sellers net proceeds. Just to see what it looks like. Thank you,

Ben

 Thank you! I guess for me, my best lessons come from my mistakes :)...

No problem, I got this... I have something better than Federal hikes thanks to BP community!!! The tenacity to keep pushing through the thick brush known as life. Without the community, I would not understand how to implement action. For this simple fact, I thank you BP community. Bonnie thank you for the inspiration! Your words were needed and appreciated, for me this is where RE Logic meets Fact.

Update: April 11th, 2023

Since December 15th, 2022. 

I have managed to market any and everywhere possible… Turbo Tenant, RentRedi, Airbnb, Vrbo, Furnished Finder, CHBO. Am I missing anything?

To date, I’ve only come out of pocket once to make my monthly mortgage. I have since been mentored about other approaches to my decision to Refi this home. Which is noted and I will make sure to never make a decision like before asking the group.

Now based off of currently lending requirements I’ve heard of the 3-2-1 buy down I’m trying to get my payments lower because the mortgage plus the utilities is taxing for sure! I wanted to ask the group if this made sense? Or what other methods could I use?

I’ve pivoted to the MTR strategy and I wanted to see if anyone is connected with ALE solutions or any insurance adjuster that is trying to temporarily place a family due to natural disasters. 

Any ideas, thoughts, or concerns with the way I am approaching this? Appreciate the feedback.

Note: I no longer live in Washington state and have since moved to Texas and have a mortgage here as well. Seasonality has definitely been a factor here and I’m excited for the area to warm up. 

Thanks,

Ben

 I'm in the driver seat and you're correct! Get my bad debt under control "100%" agree. Can I ask you a question? How calculated was your leap of faith? 

While people love being in their comfort zone... I no longer want to be that person! It's a game of which bank will lend you the most or based off who you know. While my debt was wildly out of control, I never missed a payment. "If you can't do the time...Don't do the crime". I was a prisoner to my dumb uncalculated mistakes. 

I love your challenge about handling my investments! I'm going to ask you to put a pin, in our discussion and I will reach back out to you.

@Nathan Gesner I love what you do for the forum. 

For the first time in my life I do NOT fear being in debt! I had tons of bad debt in the past and I fixed it with my current home in Lacey, WA. I refinanced my home and wiped out my bad debt! I owed over 22K to one of my credit cards and over 28K loan that I had on installments.

Now, for the fun part! My new mortgage sits around $4600 a month. Comps around my area would only get me to $3400 based off some analysis I’ve done for rent. I'd be covering the difference, bad, right? For me no! Because the difference I would need to pay to cover my mortgage is beneficial... More beneficial than giving it away to credit card interest. That's how I see it.

Where am I going with all this? I listen to the bigger pockets podcast! Why does that matter? Knowledge... I'll leave it at that. I have a plan to execute because I took a leap of faith! I had to start somewhere, and I was tired of the analysis paralysis! I kept myself from tons of deals because i needed to know everything. The tools on bigger pockets helped me see the bigger picture.

Now, thanks to David & Rob! I ask how can I pay this mortgage? And NOT, I must pay this mortgage. ***MINDSET***

I was moved by Zeona McIntyre & Sarah Weaver's podcast (679) MTR.. It just clicked for me like wow... Anyone can do this! You just need to tweak a few things and make sure all your systems line up. I just started their book "30 Day Stay". I now have cheat sheet to making myself successful and navigate the market with fewer errors. Will I jack something up of course! I love when people say, I made dumb decision and that fuels my fire! How can I make them eat their words? Well for me... I have a plan and I'm going to execute my plan, and fix it where it needs fixin...

I was staying up later than the usual which was like around 1130 or midnight. But I couldn't stop reading and the more information I found, the more time I spent looking up the details.

Here we go...

Current plan-

Move a mid-term tenant into my home. How am I looking? Furnished finder and Facebook currently.

I'm offering a discount for their first month. Then I will start grabbing the markets value for rent, which is $3400.

I'm going to be eating the difference for the mortgage because I am just starting out and that’s okay with me, I already created a budget taking these numbers into account. Once I get started, I feel like this is going to take off like a rocket ship. I know how lucrative this business can be and I am going to make it happen.

Exit plans (not in any specific order)

• Sell that house, but what does that mean? It means that I would most like have to execute a short sale and then go in bad waters with my lender.
• Reach out to investors to help cover the cost. What does that mean? I know they would want stake in the equity once the market corrects itself.
• Hold on to my home and keep eating the difference on the mortgage.
• Take out equity from my other house in Oklahoma to supplement the difference. Why? To keep my mortgage in good standing.

Things I am still working on.

Marketing… I’ve received some attention on Facebook and Furnished Finder, but nothing solid.

How are you solving this problem?

Managing the property by myself long distance. Reason being I am moving.

How do you accomplish this?

Where are the areas, I can improve my thought process?

What would you do differently in my situation?

That sounds very interesting! Pulling a HELOC out would pay dividends in my opinion in this market. Investing this money into more houses in WA would be a great move... But I have to move unfortunately and I am trying to make connections with people down in Texas. I'm always available to hear what offers are out there!

Thank you! @Steve Clifford

 I'm weighing the options out currently. I just have really high CC utilization and making those debts disappear is what I am leaning towards. 

@Aj Parikh What would you do if you were in my position?