All Forum Posts by: Ben Rothwell

Hi William...I am also a physician here in NOLA. I have had a bit of success (albeit early) with real estate investments here in town. If you’d like, I can give you my two cents. 

Hi all!  I’m in the New Orleans area. My wife and I bought our first house hack one year ago today. I am working on my next property as we speak. I’d love to interact with other investors in the area. 

It’s near a college so maybe need to increase vacancy rates a bit?

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Thanks @Mike Wood and @Braden Smith.  Do you know of lenders that will offer 5% down loans?  

Hi everyone.  I'm new to Bigger Pockets and somewhat new to real estate investing.  I have been wavering over the best strategy to pursue as my first real deal.  To give some context, I live in New Orleans, where the prices have gotten quite high.  We are debating between a few options:

Option 1: House hack a duplex or triplex. The only issue for this is getting a down payment together. Due to the high cost of homes, we cannot get an FHA loan for an area of town we would like to live in. We can likely get the savings up to that level within the next year but even with a good down payment, the pickings are somewhat slim as most of the units I've looked at are asking too much to make the deal work. Additionally, we would have to sign a month-to-month lease which would increase our monthly rental payment by 10%.

Option 2:  We continue to live in the rental unit (which we are quite happy with) and buy a cheaper unit in a less desirable area (for us) but has potential for more cash flow.  Alternatively, we could look for an out-of-town investment.  This would save us the 10% increase in the rent and give us a bit more freedom in looking at properties.

I should note that we did find one house-hackable property we actually really liked but the major issue is finding a lender that will accept a down payment of less than 20%.

I've been mulling the options over in my head and I was hoping to get some perspective from y'all to help me clarify my thinking.

Thanks in advance!

-Ben

Hi Brian,

I'm in New Orleans and am also a new investor.  I'm looking to start investing down here but I have been curious about what's available in Hammond, especially with regards to student housing near SLU.  Thanks for reaching out and hopefully we can be of help to each other.

Ben

I live in New Orleans currently.  I have yet to buy my first property but one thing I'm paying a close eye on is whether the house flooded during Katrina.  I figure that is the "worst case scenario" (although I'm well aware it could always get worse) and gives me an idea what to expect.  Proper insurance will be a must as well, and keep in mind they were oftentimes not covering homes that flooded as it was due to the levees and not the storm.